In this paper, a pawl composite linkage transfer mechanism is designed for the automatic in-orbit sample transfer mission of Chang’E-5 lunar sample return mission, which can realize the sample container in-orbit transfer under various critical...
The mission objective of the Phobos Sample Return is to collect and return 100 g of Phobos’ surface material to Earth inside a tight enclosure composed of a Vault, a Sample Container and sealing elements. One important aspect of the project was the d...
Sample return missions are among the most difficult tasks for robotic spacecraft in exploring our solar system. However, the samples they return to Earth have significantly high value for the planetary science community. Thus far, we have only acquir...
The Mars Sample Return campaign is an endeavor of unprecedented technological complexity and coordination that attempts to answer fundamental questions about the habitability of Mars by returning the first samples of Martian material to Earth for ana...
Dust storms play a crucial role in the climate system and the space environment of Mars, significantly impacting human exploration activities on the planet. The Martian dust storms exhibit significant regional, seasonal and interannual variations due...
A Planetary Atmospheric Chamber (PAC) was used to create simulations of interplanetary conditions to test the spore survival of three Bacillus spp. exposed to interacting conditions of vacuum (VAC), simulated solar heating (HEAT), and simulated solar...
Mars Sample Return Program planning includes a series of spacecraft staged both on the Martian surface and in low-Mars-orbit (LMO). During the transfer of samples into orbit, external spacecraft surfaces might be exposed to Mars dust carried on the s...
Planetary sample return missions can impose extreme mechanical forces on both spacecraft and the returned samples collected from a planetary surface that they contain. The chain of custody phases from entry/descent/landing to curation each present di...
Chang’e-5 (CE-5), China’s first sample-return mission, has successfully landed in Oceanus Procellarum near Mons Rümker. It is important to have a detailed study of the geological evolution of the CE-5 sample return region. This work...
Numerous space missions are advancing our understanding of the origin and evolution of planetary bodies and the potential for the emergence of life throughout the Solar System and beyond. Investigations across the inner Solar System have revealed con...
Carbon-based compounds are widespread throughout the Universe, including abiotic molecules that are the components of the life as we know it. This article reviews the space missions that have aimed to detect organic matter and biosignatures in planet...
This paper investigates the shareholder wealth impact of government investment in listed companies (and by extension, government subsidisation of those companies), using data from Malaysia. We distinguish two overlapping categories of government-rela...
The Hayabusa2 mission was tasked with returning samples from the C-complex asteroid Ryugu (1999 JU3), in order to shed light on the formation, evolution and composition of such asteroids. One of the main science objectives was to understand whether s...
Raman spectroscopy is a non-destructive analytical technique for characterizing organic and inorganic materials with spatial resolution in the micrometer range. This makes it a method of choice for space-mission sample characterization, whether on re...
Chang’e-6 (CE-6) is the first sample-return mission from the lunar farside and will be launched in May of 2024. The landing area is in the south of the Apollo basin inside the South Pole Aitken basin. Statistics and analyses of impact craters in the...
Chang’e-5, China’s first unmanned lunar sample-return mission, was successfully landed in Northern Oceanus Procellarum on 1 December 2020. Determining the lander location precisely and timely is critical for both engineering operations and subsequent...
Precise orbit determination for multi-spacecraft deep space missions faces challenges including long communication delays, sparse tracking, dynamic model uncertainties, and inefficient data fusion. Presenting a hybrid estimation architecture, this st...
The optimal design of the propulsion system for a potential Mars Ascent Vehicle is analyzed, in the context of the Mars Sample Return Mission. The Mars Ascent Vehicle has to perform an initial ascent phase from the surface and then circularize into a...
Within the perspective of the current and future space missions, the detection and separation of building blocks such as amino acids are important subjects which are becoming fundamental in the search for the origin of life and traces of life in the...
Autonomous navigation is essential for small-body exploration, particularly for sophisticated missions such as sample-return operations. This study proposes a radio marker-based self-positioning system for small-body exploration using the asynchronou...
For over half a century, scientists have contemplated the potential existence of life within the clouds of Venus. Unknown chemistry leaves open the possibility that certain regions of the Venusian atmosphere are habitable. In situ atmospheric measure...
Mounting evidence of chemical disequilibria in the Venusian atmosphere has heightened interest in the search for life within the planet’s cloud decks. Balloon systems are currently considered to be the superior class of aerial platform for exte...
The Chang’e-6 mission achieved the first successful sample collection and return from the Moon’s far side. Accurate alignment detection of the primary packaging container is critical for the success of this mission, as it ensures proper r...
Space missions using probes to return dust samples are becoming more frequent. Dust collectors made of silica aerogel blocks are used to trap and bring back extraterrestrial particles for analysis. In this work, we show that it is possible to detect...
Chang’E-5 will be China’s first sample−return mission. The proposed landing site is at the late-Eratosthenian-aged Rümker region of the lunar nearside. During this mission, a driller will be sunk into the lunar regolith to coll...
We manually mapped particles ranging in longest axis from 0.3 cm to 95 m on (101955) Bennu for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) asteroid sample return mission. This enabled the...
The docking mechanism is the key system for realizing the lunar-orbit docking mission of two spacecraft, which needs to have both capture correction and connection hold functions. The different stiffness requirements between the capture correction pr...
The Hayabusa2 mission returned primitive samples from the C-type asteroid Ryugu to Earth. The C-type asteroids hold clues to the origin of Earth’s water and the building blocks of life. The rubble pile structure of C-type asteroids is a crucial...
The Chang’E-6 (CE-6) mission successfully returned 1935.3 g of lunar soil samples from the Apollo basin within the South Pole–Aitken basin. One of its scientific objectives is to investigate the subsurface structure and regolith thickness...
This paper reviews the phosphate phases in meteorites and those measured by landed spacecraft, what they reveal about past igneous and aqueous conditions on Mars, and important implications for potential prebiotic chemistry, past habitability, and po...
On Earth, the deep subsurface biosphere of both the oceanic and the continental crust is well known for surviving harsh conditions and environments characterized by high temperatures, high pressures, extreme pHs, and the absence of sunlight. The micr...
Chang’E-5 is the first lunar sample return mission of China. The spacecraft was landed in the northwest of the Procellarum KREEP Terrane (43.0576°N, 308.0839°E) on 1 December 2020 and returned 1731 g samples from a previously unvisited region. The la...
The primary objective of the present study is to investigate the science return of future Venus atmosphere probe mission concepts using the Quadrupole Ion Trap (QIT) Mass Spectrometer (MS) Instrument (QIT-MS-I). We demonstrate the use of Monte-Carlo...
The exploitation of synthetic aperture properties in nadir-looking radars is opening new scenarios in the framework of satellite radar altimetry. Both recent and upcoming missions including Cryosat-2, Sentinel-3, Sentinel-6 and SWOT take benefit from...
The Chang’E-6 lunar mission successfully collected the lunar back surface and subsurface lunar regolith by excavating and drilling and returned the lunar regolith samples to the earth. Drilling–sampling system exhibits highly nonlinear characteristic...
Future space missions will include a return to the Moon and long duration deep space roundtrip missions to Mars. Leaving the protection that Low Earth Orbit provides will unavoidably expose astronauts to higher cumulative doses of space radiation, in...
Chang’E-5 (CE-5) is China’s first lunar sample return mission. This paper focuses on the trajectory determination of the CE-5 lander and ascender during the landing and ascending phases, and the positioning of the CE-5 lander on the Moon....
Over the course of NASA’s Dawn Discovery mission, the onboard framing camera mapped Ceres across a wide wavelength spectrum at varying polar science orbits and altitudes. With increasing resolution, the uniqueness of the 92 km wide, young Occat...
Exploration of Mercury will continue in the near future with ESA/JAXA’s BepiColombo mission, which will increase the number and the type of datasets, and it will take advantage of the results from NASA’s MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space...
We report the development of a new type of space lidar specifically designed for missions to small planetary bodies for both topographic mapping and support of sample collection or landing. The instrument is designed to have a wide dynamic range with...
Future planetary exploration missions will rely heavily on efficient human–robot interaction to ensure astronaut safety and maximize scientific return. In this context, digital twins offer a promising tool for planning, simulating, and optimizi...
The search for life beyond Earth currently hinges on the detection of biosignatures that are indicative of current or past life, with terrestrial life being the sole known example. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which acts as the long-term storage of g...
This is an exercise to explore the concentration of lithium, lithium-7 isotope and the possible presence of black dirty ice on the lunar surface using spectral data obtained from the Clementine mission. The main interest in tracing the lithium and pr...
The second and third phases of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) are planning to achieve Moon landing, surface exploration and automated sample return. In these missions, the inertial navigation system (INS) and celestial navigation system...
The successful return of Chang’E-5 (CE5) samples urges the hot topic of the study of the Moon in geochemistry. The elemental data of the analyzed moon samples reported in the literature were collected to determine the elemental abundances in mo...
The nitrogen isotopic compositions of lunar soil have important implications for the sources of lunar volatiles and even the evolution of the moon. At present, the research on the lunar nitrogen isotopic compositions is mainly based on the lunar mete...
Nanophase iron (np-Fe) is widely distributed on the surface of lunar soil particles, forming as a result of space weathering. These np-Fe particles contribute to the reddening and darkening of the visible to near-infrared spectra of weathered lunar m...
Structural analysis of lunar regolith not only provides important information about lunar geology but also provides a reference for future lunar sample return missions. The Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) onboard China’s Chang’E-3 (CE-3) pr...
The acidic sulfate-rich waters of the Meridiani Planum region were potentially a habitable environment for iron-oxidizing bacteria on ancient Mars. If life existed in this ancient martian environment, jarosite minerals precipitating in these waters m...
For the past two decades, microbial monitoring of the International Space Station (ISS) has relied on culture-dependent methods that require return to Earth for analysis. This has a number of limitations, with the most significant being bias towards...
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