Innovative Space Mission Analysis and Design (Volume II)

A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310). This special issue belongs to the section "Astronautics & Space Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2022) | Viewed by 14177

Special Issue Editor


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centre Spatial de Liège and Department of Space Instrumentation, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
Interests: space technologies; optics; structures; thermal design; structure dynamics; tribology; mission design; space sciences; earth observation; astrodynamics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Space science research is having a major impact on our daily lives and can provide a solid framework for global cooperation. Recent advances in space science and technology are often enabled by the adoption of new technology. In some instances, this is where the technology is invented; however, it is more commonly adopted from another scientific or industrial area of application. The adoption of new technology typically occurs via one of two processes. The more common process is incremental progress by a series of small improvements; however, occasionally this process is disruptive, with a new technology completely replacing an older one.

Therefore, we invite papers that address these new technologies, as well as many related topics, such as new and more compact payloads, innovative design, thermal control developments, unconventional mission orbits, clusters of satellites, formation flying, innovative platforms. Papers which explore the general field of innovative space mission design and analyze space sciences (solar system, exoplanets, astrophysics, fundamental physics, plasma physics) and space weather are also welcomed.

This Special Issue will focus on novel concepts and technologies that are necessary to enable new spacecraft or mission concepts with higher performances and lower mass and costs. This Special Issue will also cover topics of remote sensing: a better resolution, increased accuracy, higher bandwidth, and greater time coverage of the Earth; disruptive technologies for remote sensing; super-spectral and hyperspectral payloads; the performance of sensors and their underlying technologies; and significant improvements in areas such as miniaturization and power reduction. It will also focus on improving payload (radiometric and spectral parameters, spatial resolution, swath, polarization) and solutions for stable and large optomechanical elements and systems (e.g., lightweight telescope mirrors), new focal planes, improved wavefront error, line of sight control, high-performance actuators, onboard image processing, onboard artificial intelligence, and data fusion integration.

New developments in astrophysics including future multi-messenger observations could also be covered. 

Prof. Dr. Pierre Rochus
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Aerospace is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • instrumentation
  • instrument technologies
  • photometers
  • polarimeters
  • spectrographs
  • telescopes
  • lightweight telescope mirrors
  • radiometric and spectral parameters
  • spatial resolution
  • swath
  • multispectral filters
  • straylight reduction
  • increased swath and resolution
  • technologies for super-spectral and hyper-spectral imaging
  • onboard data processing
  • adaptive optics
  • very high-resolution optical EO for LEO
  • high resolution optical EO for GEO/HEO
  • detectors
  • materials
  • high performance actuators
  • integrated multi-instrument
  • on-board payload data processing
  • onboard data/image optimization and compression
  • advanced SAR
  • new generation Automatic Identification Systems (AIS)
  • better resolution
  • increased accuracy
  • higher bandwidth
  • unconventional mission orbits
  • cluster of satellites
  • formation flying
  • cislunar dynamics
  • earth quasi-satellites
  • disposal orbits
  • third body effect
  • lunar orbits
  • space weather
  • suitable vantage points (Lagrange 1 and 5; earth trailing orbit around the sun as well as on earth-orbiting satellites)
  • innovative platform
  • miniaturization
  • power reduction
  • more capabilities into smaller packages
  • constellations of small satellites
  • Cubesats and other small space platforms
  • Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)
  • multi-messenger astrophysics
  • new windows to the universe
  • exoplanets
  • dark matter
  • dark energy
  • gravitational waves

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (4 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

11 pages, 2242 KiB  
Article
Research on the Prediction Problem of Satellite Mission Schedulability Based on Bi-LSTM Model
by Guohui Zhang, Xinhong Li, Xun Wang, Zhibing Zhang, Gangxuan Hu, Yanyan Li and Rui Zhang
Aerospace 2022, 9(11), 676; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace9110676 - 2 Nov 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1532
Abstract
The realization of microsatellite intelligent mission planning is the current research focus in the field of satellite planning, and mission schedulability prediction is the basis of this research. Aiming at the influence of the sequence tasks before and after the task sequence to [...] Read more.
The realization of microsatellite intelligent mission planning is the current research focus in the field of satellite planning, and mission schedulability prediction is the basis of this research. Aiming at the influence of the sequence tasks before and after the task sequence to be predicted, we propose an online schedulability prediction model of satellite tasks based on bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) on the basis of describing and establishing the satellite task planning and solving model. The model is trained using satellite offline mission planning data as learning samples. In the experiment, the prediction effect of the model is excellent, with a recall rate of 93.17% and a precision rate of 92.59%, which proves that the model can be effectively applied to predict the schedulability of satellite tasks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Space Mission Analysis and Design (Volume II))
Show Figures

Figure 1

27 pages, 12634 KiB  
Article
Design of Novel Laser Crosslink Systems Using Nanosatellites in Formation Flying: The VISION
by Geuk-Nam Kim, Sang-Young Park, Sehyun Seong, Jae-Young Choi, Sang-Kook Han, Young-Eon Kim, Suyong Choi, Joohee Lee, Sungmoon Lee, Han-Gyeol Ryu and Seonghui Kim
Aerospace 2022, 9(8), 423; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace9080423 - 3 Aug 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2928
Abstract
With growth in data volume from space missions, interest in laser communications has increased, owing to their importance for high-speed data transfer in the commercial and defense fields, spaceborne remote sensing, and surveillance. Here, we propose a novel system for space-to-space laser communication, [...] Read more.
With growth in data volume from space missions, interest in laser communications has increased, owing to their importance for high-speed data transfer in the commercial and defense fields, spaceborne remote sensing, and surveillance. Here, we propose a novel system for space-to-space laser communication, a very high-speed inter-satellite link system using an infrared optical terminal and nanosatellite (VISION), which is aimed at establishing and validating miniaturized laser crosslink systems and several space technologies using two 6U nanosatellites in formation flying. An optical link budget analysis is conducted to derive the signal-to-noise ratio requirements and allocate the system budget; the optical link margin should be greater than 10 dB to guarantee communication with practical limitations. The payload is a laser transceiver with a deployable space telescope to enhance the gain of the beam transmission and reception. Nanosatellites, including precise formation flying GNC systems, are designed and analyzed. The attitude control system ensures pointing and tracking errors within tens of arcsec, and they are equipped with a propulsion system that can change the inter-satellite distance rapidly and accurately. This novel concept of laser crosslink systems is expected to make a significant contribution to the future design and construction of high-speed space-to-space networks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Space Mission Analysis and Design (Volume II))
Show Figures

Figure 1

24 pages, 7330 KiB  
Article
Design of Mega-Constellations for Global Uniform Coverage with Inter-Satellite Links
by Lu Jia, Yasheng Zhang, Jinlong Yu and Xuan Wang
Aerospace 2022, 9(5), 234; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace9050234 - 24 Apr 2022
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3897
Abstract
Constellation configuration design is a prerequisite and critical step in the construction of a mega-constellation system in low Earth orbit. However, the huge number of satellites and the intricate changes in relative positions among them make the configuration design the most challenging part. [...] Read more.
Constellation configuration design is a prerequisite and critical step in the construction of a mega-constellation system in low Earth orbit. However, the huge number of satellites and the intricate changes in relative positions among them make the configuration design the most challenging part. In this paper, we propose a configuration design scheme for mega-constellations considering collision-avoidance constraints with the objective of uniform global coverage. In this design scheme, the constellation is made up of multiple Walker constellations with the same orbital altitude and different orbital inclination. Moreover, the analytical expression for the minimum distance between any two satellites in the same orbital altitude is derived, and the constellation internal collision-avoidance constraint is established accordingly. Finally, a permanent inter-satellite link design scheme without dynamic reconstruction is presented based on the mega-constellation configuration. Simulation results show that the mega-constellation design scheme introduced in this paper can achieve relatively uniform global coverage (its N Asset Coverage ranges from 18 to 25). The mixed Walker constellation is capable of providing a greater number of N Asset Coverage for most of the world than the Walker constellation of the same satellite order of magnitude. In addition, the inter-satellite link scheme designed in this paper can ensure continuous and stable communication between any satellite nodes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Space Mission Analysis and Design (Volume II))
Show Figures

Figure 1

21 pages, 4405 KiB  
Article
A Concept for a Mars Boundary Layer Sounding Balloon: Science Case, Technical Concept and Deployment Risk Analysis
by Lars Witte, Gabriele Arnold, Jan Bertram, Matthias Grott, Caroline Krämer, Andreas Lorek and Torben Wippermann
Aerospace 2022, 9(3), 136; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace9030136 - 4 Mar 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3352
Abstract
The Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group has identified measurements of the state and the variability of the Martian atmosphere as high priority investigations for the upcoming years. Balloon-borne instruments could bridge the gap in both temporal and spatial resolution in mesoscale distances between [...] Read more.
The Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group has identified measurements of the state and the variability of the Martian atmosphere as high priority investigations for the upcoming years. Balloon-borne instruments could bridge the gap in both temporal and spatial resolution in mesoscale distances between local, stationary landers and global orbiter observations. The idea to use a balloon system for such a purpose is not new in essence and has been proposed already in past decades. While those concepts considered an aerial deployment during entry and descent, the concept outlined in this study revisits a launch off the payload deck of a lander from the Martian surface. This deployment option profits today mainly from the technological advance in micro-electronics and sensor miniaturization, which enables the design of a balloon-probe significantly smaller than earlier proposed systems. This paper presents the feasibility assessment for this instrument and gives further details on the scientific and operational concept, a strawman sensor suite, its system components and the associated size and budget estimates. It is complemented by the analysis scheme proposed to assess, manage and mitigate the deployment risk involved in automatically launching such a balloon-system off a planetary surface. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Space Mission Analysis and Design (Volume II))
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop