I presented the latest results of the CRADLE Project at the 2022 AIAA SciTech Forum and Exposition, held in San Diego, California, between the 3rd and 7th of January 2022. The AIAA SciTech Forum is a major appointment in the space agenda and the biggest conference about aerospace on US soil. It was a great opportunity to meet with many colleagues and fellow scientists, share my research and the latest development of the CRADLE project.
I presented a work titled “Ejecta models for particles generated by small kinetic impactors onto asteroid surfaces“, in the Earth and Non-Earth Space Missions session. The focus of the work was the ejecta model I am developing. The model is a key to predicting how the asteroid’s particles will move in space. In fact, the ejecta model is used to generate the particles after a small kinetic impact.
In this work, I wanted to understand the impact the modelling choices have on the fate of the ejecta: which particles re-impact the asteroid and which ones escape or keep orbiting it? What is the characteristic time of their evolution? Where do they re-impact the asteroid? In order to answer these and more questions, we simulated 500,000 particles and followed their trajectories. First, we looked at the effect of modelling the particle size and speed. Then, we looked at the ejection angles, distinguishing between different distributions.
The work is a collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). In fact, we leverage their heritage and experience in asteroids’ missions. Particularly, we start from the extraordinary findings of the probe Hayabis2 that visited asteroid Ryugu.
If you like the topic, check out the paper on ResearchGate at this link.
Interested in more…
You can check out more articles about the CRADLE project: