Publications by authors named "Carlos Corral Van Damme"
The Comet Interceptor Mission.
Geraint H Jones Colin Snodgrass Cecilia Tubiana Michael Küppers Hideyo Kawakita Carlos Corral van Damme
Space Sci Rev
January 2024
Article Synopsis
- The Comet Interceptor mission aims to explore a long-period comet or an interstellar object entering our Solar System, with a focus on its surface composition, shape, and the composition of its gas and dust.
- Proposed to the European Space Agency in 2018 and approved in June 2022, it is set to launch in 2029 alongside the Ariel mission, utilizing a low-cost approach that allows it to wait for a suitable target comet.
- The mission will feature a main probe and two sub-probes (B1 from JAXA and B2), providing simultaneous, detailed 3D information about the comet and its interaction with the solar wind, making it unique compared to previous missions.
The objectives of ExoMars are to inject an orbiter around Mars and to land a rover on the surface to look for possible traces of life. During the first stages of the feasibility analysis, the mass margin of the orbiter was very small for a direct transfer in the Soyuz/Fregat scenario. An analysis of the combined use of lunar swing-bys and the Sun gravity gradient is performed with WESBOT in order to obtain alternative trajectories for injecting higher mass into Mars transfer.
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