Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

The European Space Agency’s Asteroid Impact Mission is joined by two triple-unit CubeSats to observe the impact of the NASA-led Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) probe with the secondary Didymos asteroid, planned for late 2022.
Credit: ESA – ScienceOffice.org

Work is progressing on a deep-space technology-demonstration mission that would also be the first probe to rendezvous with a double asteroid.

The Asteroid Impact Mission, or AIM, is undergoing detailed design ahead of a final go/no-go decision by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Ministerial Council next year – in December 2016.

AIM is Europe’s contribution to a larger international undertaking called the Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission.

AIDA involves the U.S. Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) that would strike the smaller of the two Didymos asteroids, planned for late 2022.

Europe’s AIM would perform before-and-after monitoring duties to help chart any resulting orbital and structural shifts in the struck object.

CubeSat tasks

ESA has announced five CubeSat concepts have been selected and are under review to accompany the Asteroid Impact Mission.

The CubeSat ideas being looked at include taking a close-up look at the composition of the asteroid surface, measuring the gravity field, assessing the dust and ejecta plumes created during a collision, and landing a CubeSat on the body for seismic monitoring.

The main ESA AIM spacecraft would carry smaller probes within it: the Mascot-2 lander from the DLR German Aerospace Center, and an additional pair of triple-unit CubeSats.

The selected CubeSat proposals are to be funded by ESA for detailed study.

Asteroid Impact Mission, or AIM, networking with CubeSats
Credit: ESA – ScienceOffice.org

Low-cost interplanetary missions

CubeSat proposals that were chosen are:

• AGEX (Royal Observatory of Belgium, ISAE-SUPAERO, Antwerp Space, EMXYS, Asteroid Initiatives Ltd). A CubeSat touches down to assess the surface material, surface gravity, subsurface structure and of the DART impact effects. Another CubeSat in orbit deploys smaller “chipsats” dispersed over the asteroid.
• ASPECT (VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, University of Helsinki, Aalto University Foundation). A CubeSat equipped with a near-infrared spectrometer to assess the asteroid composition and effects of space weathering and metamorphic shock, as well as post-impact plume observations.
• DustCube (University of Vigo, Micos Engineering GmbH, University of Bologna). A CubeSat to measure the size, shape and concentration of fine dust ejected in the aftermath of the collision and its evolution over time.
• CUBATA (GMV, Sapienza University of Rome, INTA). Two CubeSats measure the asteroid system’s gravity field pre- and post-impact through Doppler tracking of CubeSats, as well as performing close range imaging of the impact event.
• PALS (Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Institute for Space Sciences IEEC, Royal Institute of Technology KTH, AAC Microtec, DLR). Two CubeSats characterize the magnetization, bulk chemical composition and presence of volatiles of the impact ejecta, as well as perform very high resolution imaging of the ejecta components.

CubeSat engagement in asteroid research is part of a larger space exploration initiative. ESA is applying current European technology miniaturization efforts to explore the Solar System in unprecedented ways, lowering the cost and risk of interplanetary missions.

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