End-to-end trajectory design for a solar-sail-only pole-sitter at Venus, Earth, and Mars

Systems Design of a Hybrid Sail Pole - Sitter

This paper presents the preliminary systems design of a pole-sitter. This is a spacecraft that hovers over an Earth pole, creating a platform for full hemispheric observation of the polar regions, as well as direct-link telecommunications. To provide the necessary thrust, a hybrid propulsion system combines a solar sail with a more mature solar electric propulsion (SEP) thruster. Previous work ...

Trajectory and Spacecraft Design for a Pole-Sitter Mission

Solar Sail Trajectory Design for a Multiple Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Mission

Crater Fields on Venus , Earth and Mars

Introduction: Meteoroids that are disrupted and dispersed in the atmosphere may give rise to crater fields at the surface. For lower mass objects fragmentation may produce a strewn field of meteorite fragments, and then (with increasing mass) meteorites plus impact pits; small meterto tens m-sized well separated craters; craters whose rims overlap; and finally single craters produced by a swarm...

Venus-Earth-Mars: Comparative Climatology and the Search for Life in the Solar System

In this presentation I give an overview of the long struggle to answer the age old question, does life exist anywhere else? The focus will be specifically on the search for life in the solar system, since this is the only region currently accessible to direct investigation. A hundred years ago many people believed that life, possibly even intelligent life, existed at the nearby planets Venus an...