Abstract
Understanding the internal composition of a celestial body is fundamental for formulating theories regarding its origin. Deep knowledge of the distribution of mass under the body’s crust can be achieved by analyzing its moments of inertia and gravity field. In this regard, the two moons of the Martian system have not yet been closely studied and continue to pose questions regarding their origin to the space community; thus, they deserve further characterization. The Martian Moons eXploration mission will be the first of its kind to sample and study Phobos over a prolonged period. This study aims to demonstrate that the adoption of periodic and quasi-periodic retrograde trajectories would be beneficial for the scientific value of the mission. Here, a covariance analysis was implemented to compare the estimation of high-order gravitational field coefficients from different orbital geometries and for different sets of processed observables. It was shown that the adoption of low-altitude non-planar quasi-satellite orbits would help to refine the knowledge of the moon’s libration angle and gravitational field.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Koji Matsumoto, Hitoshi Ikeda, and Shota Kikuchi for their suggestions and useful tips throughout the development of this work. This research was partially funded by CNES under the research contract Ref. R-S20/BS-0005-069.
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Edoardo Ciccarelli completed his studies in aerospace engineering in 2016 and obtained his M.Sc. degree in space engineering in 2019 at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. In September 2020 he started a Ph.D. in the department’s astrodynamics group and is enrolled as postgraduate researcher at the Surrey Space Centre. His research is focused on deep space navigation, orbit determination, and autonomous operations for small bodies’ characterization.
Nicola Baresi graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder, USA, in 2017 with a Ph.D. thesis on spacecraft formation flight and quasi-periodic invariant tori. He later moved to Japan working on the MMX and EQUULEUS missions as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences (ISAS) of JAXA. Starting from 2019, Dr. Baresi has joined the University of Surrey, where he is now a lecturer in orbital mechanics at Surrey Space Centre. Nicola has authored more than 50 scientific contributions, including conference proceedings and peer-reviewed articles in top-ranked astrodynamics journals. He is an elected member of the Space Flight Mechanics committee of the American Astronautical Society, as well as a fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.
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Ciccarelli, E., Baresi, N. Covariance analysis of periodic and quasi-periodic orbits around Phobos with applications to the Martian Moons eXploration mission. Astrodyn 7, 363–379 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42064-023-0166-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42064-023-0166-4