Browsing by Author "Licandro, J."

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    The Castalia mission to Main Belt Coment 133P/Elst-Pizarro
    (Elsevier, 2017-09-19) Snodgrass, Colin; Jones, G. H.; Boehnhardt, H.; Gibbings, Alison; Homeister, M.; Andre, N.; Beck, P.; Bentley, M. S.; Bertini, I.; Bowles, Neil E.; Capria, M. T.; Carr, C.; Ceriotti, M.; Coates, A. J.; Della Corte, V.; Donaldson Hanna, Kerri L.; Fitzsimmons, A.; Gutiérrez, P. J.; Hainaut, O. R.; Herique, A.; Hilchenbach, M.; Hsieh, H. H.; Jehin, E.; Karatekin, O.; Kofman, W.; Lara, L. M.; Laudan, K.; Licandro, J.; Lowry, S. C.; Marzari, F.; Masters, A.; Meech, K. J.; Moreno, F.; Morse, A.; Orosei, R.; Pack, A.; Plettemeier, D.; Prialnik, D.; Rotundi, A.; Rubin, M.; Sánchez, Joan-Pau; Sheridan, S.; Trieloff, M.; Winterboer, A.
    We describe Castalia, a proposed mission to rendezvous with a Main Belt Comet (MBC), 133P/Elst-Pizarro. MBCs are a recently discovered population of apparently icy bodies within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which may represent the remnants of the population which supplied the early Earth with water. Castalia will perform the first exploration of this population by characterising 133P in detail, solving the puzzle of the MBC’s activity, and making the first in situ measurements of water in the asteroid belt. In many ways a successor to ESA’s highly successful Rosetta mission, Castalia will allow direct comparison between very different classes of comet, including measuring critical isotope ratios, plasma and dust properties. It will also feature the first radar system to visit a minor body, mapping the ice in the interior. Castalia was proposed, in slightly different versions, to the ESA M4 and M5 calls within the Cosmic Vision programme. We describe the science motivation for the mission, the measurements required to achieve the scientific goals, and the proposed instrument payload and spacecraft to achieve these.
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    CASTAway: An asteroid main belt tour and survey
    (Elsevier, 2017-11-01) Bowles, Neil E.; Snodgrass, Colin; Gibbings, Alison; Sanchez, Joan-Pau; Arnold, Jessica A.; Eccleston, Paul; Andert, Tom; Probst, A.; Naletto, Giampiero; Vandaele, A. C.; de Leon, J.; Nathues, A.; Thomas, Ian R.; Thomas, Nicholas; Jorda, Laurent; Da Deppo, Vania; Haack, H.; Green, Simon F.; Carry, Benoit; Donaldson Hanna, Kerri L.; Leif Jorgensen, J.; Kereszturi, Akos; DeMeo, F. E.; Patel, Manish R.; Davies, John K.; Clarke, Fraser; Kinch, K.; Guilbert-Lepoutre, A.; Agarwal, J.; Rivkin, Andy S.; Pravec, Petr; Fornasier, Sonia; Granvik, Mikael; Jones, Rhian H.; Murdoch, Naomi; Joy, Katherine H.; Pascale, Enzo; Tecza, Matthias; Barnes, Jenny M.; Licandro, J.; Greenhagen, Benjamin T.; Calcutt, Simon B.; Marriner, C. M.; Warren, Tristram; Tosh, Ian
    CASTAway is a mission concept to explore our Solar System’s main asteroid belt. Asteroids and comets provide a window into the formation and evolution of our Solar System and the composition of these objects can be inferred from space-based remote sensing using spectroscopic techniques. Variations in composition across the asteroid populations provide a tracer for the dynamical evolution of the Solar System. The mission combines a long-range (point source) telescopic survey of over 10,000 objects, targeted close encounters with 10–20 asteroids and serendipitous searches to constrain the distribution of smaller (e.g. 10 m) size objects into a single concept. With a carefully targeted trajectory that loops through the asteroid belt, CASTAway would provide a comprehensive survey of the main belt at multiple scales. The scientific payload comprises a 50 cm diameter telescope that includes an integrated low-resolution (R = 30–100) spectrometer and visible context imager, a thermal (e.g. 6–16 µm) imager for use during the flybys, and modified star tracker cameras to detect small (∼10 m) asteroids. The CASTAway spacecraft and payload have high levels of technology readiness and are designed to fit within the programmatic and cost caps for a European Space Agency medium class mission, while delivering a significant increase in knowledge of our Solar System.