An overview of the ArgoMoon and LICIAcube flight dynamics operations

M. Lombardo; L.G. Casajus; M. Zannoni; I. Gai; E. Gramigna; P. Tortora; E. Dotto; M. Amoroso; S. Pirrotta; V. Di Tana; B. Cotugno; S. Patruno; F. Cavallo

doi:10.21741/9781644902813-138

An overview of the ArgoMoon and LICIAcube flight dynamics operations

Marco Lombardo, Luis Gomez Casajus, Marco Zannoni, Igor Gai, Edoardo Gramigna, Paolo Tortora, Elisabetta Dotto, Marilena Amoroso, Simone Pirrotta, Valerio Di Tana, Biagio Cotugno, Silvio Patruno, Francesco Cavallo, the LICIACube Team

Abstract CubeSats are becoming a reliable alternative for low-cost space applications in deep space, as mission companions or as standalone missions. The use of CubeSats in deep space requires to address many operational challenges, particularly those related to navigation. LICIACube and ArgoMoon are the first two 6U CubeSat missions to the outer space funded and managed by the Italian Space Agency, whose spacecrafts have been developed and operated by Argotec. The flight dynamics operations of both missions were performed by the flight dynamics team of the University of Bologna using NASA/JPL’s navigation software MONTE. This paper gives a brief presentation of the flight dynamics operations of ArgoMoon and LICIACube and presents the obtained results highlighting the challenges of cis-lunar and deep space CubeSat navigation as well as the achieved successes.

Keywords
ArgoMoon, LICIACube, Deep Space, Cis-Lunar, Navigation, Orbit Determination, Flight Path Control, IRIS, Moon, Dimorphos, Didymos, Artemis-1, DART

Published online 11/1/2023, 5 pages
Copyright © 2023 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: Marco Lombardo, Luis Gomez Casajus, Marco Zannoni, Igor Gai, Edoardo Gramigna, Paolo Tortora, Elisabetta Dotto, Marilena Amoroso, Simone Pirrotta, Valerio Di Tana, Biagio Cotugno, Silvio Patruno, Francesco Cavallo, the LICIACube Team, An overview of the ArgoMoon and LICIAcube flight dynamics operations, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 37, pp 634-638, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644902813-138

The article was published as article 138 of the book Aeronautics and Astronautics

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

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