Jules Verne: an academy developed nanospacecraft lunar orbiter
- Paper number
IAC-11,B4,8,8,x9571
- Author
Prof. Lorenzo Zago, Western Switzerland University of Applied Sciences - HEIG-VD, Switzerland
- Coauthor
Mr. Pierre-Laurent Duc, Western Switzerland University of Applied Sciences (HESSO.HEIG-VD) and Swiss Association for Astronautics, Switzerland
- Year
2011
- Abstract
The paper presents a nanosat sized spacecraft capable of journeying to Lunar orbit once launched into GTO. The mission is being studied as a successor to the successful SwissCube project realized by a Western Switzerland academic network. A mission normally requiring large resources and infrastructures but not otherwise critical in terms of pure technical feasibility (it was indeed done many times) is targeted toward a miniaturized, streamlined solution. The mission is directly inspired by the current ESMO (European Student Moon Orbiter) initiative by ESA, planned for launch in the 2013/2014 timeframe. While our proposal shares the same general objective, it nonetheless differs notably from ESMO in the overall technical and programmatic approach: suffice to consider that ESMO is designed with a mass of 265 kg, while the proposed project is only 10 to 15 kg. Its key elements, which are also the main challenges of the project, are: \begin{itemize}\item Propulsion stage capable of interplanetary travel, based on a small apogee motor. \item 3-axis stabilization, spin stabilization during the propulsion phases \item Long range (up to 1 million km !) communication system. \end{itemize} The mission will start by hitching a ride to GTO. As the GTO orbit will not generally be suitable to a direct transfer, and it is expected that the first leg of the interplanetary journey is a very elongated orbit to an apogee about twice as distant as the Moon. To achieve it a perigee tangential burn is set, leading to an orbit with apogee at the order of 800’000 km where a relatively low energy burn will be able in any case to incline the orbit sufficiently, also increasing the ellipse minor axis so that the spacecraft obtains a Moon encounter. Several scientific or technology demonstration payloads are being considered. The proposed development pattern of this project follows what economists nowadays call frugal or constraint-based innovation. Of course frugal does not mean second rate, on the contrary it incorporates the latest technologies, particularly regarding miniaturization, here taking full advantage of the rich industrial and R\&D background in microtechnology of the Western Switzerland region.- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)