@inproceedings{DachwaldKahleWie2007, author = {Dachwald, Bernd and Kahle, Ralph and Wie, Bong}, title = {Head-on impact deflection of NEAs: a case study for 99942 Apophis}, series = {Planetary Defense Conference 2007}, booktitle = {Planetary Defense Conference 2007}, pages = {1 -- 12}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Near-Earth asteroid (NEA) 99942 Apophis provides a typical example for the evolution of asteroid orbits that lead to Earth-impacts after a close Earth-encounter that results in a resonant return. Apophis will have a close Earth-encounter in 2029 with potential very close subsequent Earth-encounters (or even an impact) in 2036 or later, depending on whether it passes through one of several less than 1 km-sized gravitational keyholes during its 2029-encounter. A pre-2029 kinetic impact is a very favorable option to nudge the asteroid out of a keyhole. The highest impact velocity and thus deflection can be achieved from a trajectory that is retrograde to Apophis orbit. With a chemical or electric propulsion system, however, many gravity assists and thus a long time is required to achieve this. We show in this paper that the solar sail might be the better propulsion system for such a mission: a solar sail Kinetic Energy Impactor (KEI) spacecraft could impact Apophis from a retrograde trajectory with a very high relative velocity (75-80 km/s) during one of its perihelion passages. The spacecraft consists of a 160 m × 160 m, 168 kg solar sail assembly and a 150 kg impactor. Although conventional spacecraft can also achieve the required minimum deflection of 1 km for this approx. 320 m-sized object from a prograde trajectory, our solar sail KEI concept also allows the deflection of larger objects. For a launch in 2020, we also show that, even after Apophis has flown through one of the gravitational keyholes in 2029, the solar sail KEI concept is still feasible to prevent Apophis from impacting the Earth, but many KEIs would be required for consecutive impacts to increase the total Earth-miss distance to a safe value}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{DachwaldMikuckiTulaczyketal.2012, author = {Dachwald, Bernd and Mikucki, Jill A. and Tulaczyk, Slawek and Digel, Ilya and Feldmann, Marco and Espe, Clemens and Plescher, Engelbert and Xu, Changsheng}, title = {IceMole - a maneuverable probe for clean in-situ analysis and sampling of subsurface ice and subglacial aquatic ecosystems : extended abstract / SCAR Open Science Conference 2012, Session 29: Advancing Clean Technologies for Exploration of Glacial Aquatic Ecosystems}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The "IceMole" is a novel maneuverable subsurface ice probe for clean in-situ analysis and sampling of subsurface ice and subglacial water/brine. It is developed and build at FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences' Astronautical Laboratory. A first prototype was successfully tested on the Swiss Morteratsch glacier in 2010. Clean sampling is achieved with a hollow ice screw (as it is used in mountaineering) at the tip of the probe. Maneuverability is achieved with a differentially heated melting head. Funded by the German Space Agency (DLR), a consortium led by FH Aachen currently develops a much more advanced IceMole probe, which includes a sophisticated system for obstacle avoidance, target detection, and navigation in the ice. We intend to use this probe for taking clean samples of subglacial brine at the Blood Falls (McMurdo Dry Valleys, East Antarctica) for chemical and microbiological analysis. In our conference contribution, we 1) describe the IceMole design, 2) report the results of the field tests of the first prototype on the Morteratsch glacier, 3) discuss the probe's potential for the clean in-situ analysis and sampling of subsurface ice and subglacial liquids, and 4) outline the way ahead in the development of this technology.}, subject = {Eisschicht}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{DachwaldXuFeldmannetal.2011, author = {Dachwald, Bernd and Xu, Changsheng and Feldmann, Marco and Plescher, Engelbert}, title = {IceMole : Development of a novel subsurface ice probe and testing of the first prototype on the Morteratsch Glacier}, series = {EGU General Assembly 2011 Vienna | Austria | 03 - 08 April 2011}, booktitle = {EGU General Assembly 2011 Vienna | Austria | 03 - 08 April 2011}, year = {2011}, abstract = {We present the novel concept of a combined drilling and melting probe for subsurface ice research. This probe, named "IceMole", is currently developed, built, and tested at the FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences' Astronautical Laboratory. Here, we describe its first prototype design and report the results of its field tests on the Swiss Morteratsch glacier. Although the IceMole design is currently adapted to terrestrial glaciers and ice shields, it may later be modified for the subsurface in-situ investigation of extraterrestrial ice, e.g., on Mars, Europa, and Enceladus. If life exists on those bodies, it may be present in the ice (as life can also be found in the deep ice of Earth).}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{DigelLeimenaDachwaldetal.2010, author = {Digel, Ilya and Leimena, W. and Dachwald, Bernd and Linder, Peter and Porst, Dariusz and Kayser, Peter and Funke, O. and Temiz Artmann, Ayseg{\"u}l and Artmann, Gerhard}, title = {In-situ biological decontamination of an ice melting probe : [abstract]}, year = {2010}, abstract = {The objective of our study was to investigate the efficacy of different in-situ decontamination protocols in the conditions of thermo-mechanical ice-melting.}, subject = {Sonde}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SpurmannOhndorfDachwaldetal.2009, author = {Spurmann, J{\"o}rn and Ohndorf, Andreas and Dachwald, Bernd and Seboldt, Wolfgang and L{\"o}b, Horst and Schartner, Karl-Heinz}, title = {Interplanetary trajectory optimization for a sep mission to Saturn}, series = {60th International Astronautical Congress 2009}, booktitle = {60th International Astronautical Congress 2009}, isbn = {9781615679089}, pages = {5234 -- 5248}, year = {2009}, abstract = {The recently proposed NASA and ESA missions to Saturn and Jupiter pose difficult tasks to mission designers because chemical propulsion scenarios are not capable of transferring heavy spacecraft into the outer solar system without the use of gravity assists. Thus our developed mission scenario based on the joint NASA/ESA Titan Saturn System Mission baselines solar electric propulsion to improve mission flexibility and transfer time. For the calculation of near-globally optimal low-thrust trajectories, we have used a method called Evolutionary Neurocontrol, which is implemented in the low-thrust trajectory optimization software InTrance. The studied solar electric propulsion scenario covers trajectory optimization of the interplanetary transfer including variations of the spacecraft's thrust level, the thrust unit's specific impulse and the solar power generator power level. Additionally developed software extensions enabled trajectory optimization with launcher-provided hyperbolic excess energy, a complex solar power generator model and a variable specific impulse ion engine model. For the investigated mission scenario, Evolutionary Neurocontrol yields good optimization results, which also hold valid for the more elaborate spacecraft models. Compared to Cassini/Huygens, the best found solutions have faster transfer times and a higher mission flexibility in general.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SeefeldtBauerDachwaldetal.2015, author = {Seefeldt, Patric and Bauer, Waldemar and Dachwald, Bernd and Grundmann, Jan Thimo and Straubel, Marco and Sznajder, Maciej and T{\´o}th, Norbert and Zander, Martin E.}, title = {Large lightweight deployable structures for planetary defence: solar sail propulsion, solar concentrator payloads, large-scale photovoltaic power}, series = {4th IAA Planetary Defense Conference - PDC 2015, 13-17 April 2015, Frascati, Roma, Italy}, booktitle = {4th IAA Planetary Defense Conference - PDC 2015, 13-17 April 2015, Frascati, Roma, Italy}, pages = {24}, year = {2015}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{Dachwald2007, author = {Dachwald, Bernd}, title = {Low-Thrust Mission Analysis and Global Trajectory Optimization Using Evolutionary Neurocontrol: New Results}, series = {European Workshop on Space Mission Analysis ESA/ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany 10 { 12 Dec 2007}, booktitle = {European Workshop on Space Mission Analysis ESA/ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany 10 { 12 Dec 2007}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Interplanetary trajectories for low-thrust spacecraft are often characterized by multiple revolutions around the sun. Unfortunately, the convergence of traditional trajectory optimizers that are based on numerical optimal control methods depends strongly on an adequate initial guess for the control function (if a direct method is used) or for the starting values of the adjoint vector (if an indirect method is used). Especially when many revolutions around the sun are re- quired, trajectory optimization becomes a very difficult and time-consuming task that involves a lot of experience and expert knowledge in astrodynamics and optimal control theory, because an adequate initial guess is extremely hard to find. Evolutionary neurocontrol (ENC) was proposed as a smart method for low-thrust trajectory optimization that fuses artificial neural networks and evolutionary algorithms to so-called evolutionary neurocontrollers (ENCs) [1]. Inspired by natural archetypes, ENC attacks the trajectoryoptimization problem from the perspective of artificial intelligence and machine learning, a perspective that is quite different from that of optimal control theory. Within the context of ENC, a trajectory is regarded as the result of a spacecraft steering strategy that maps permanently the actual spacecraft state and the actual target state onto the actual spacecraft control vector. This way, the problem of searching the optimal spacecraft trajectory is equivalent to the problem of searching (or "learning") the optimal spacecraft steering strategy. An artificial neural network is used to implement such a spacecraft steering strategy. It can be regarded as a parameterized function (the network function) that is defined by the internal network parameters. Therefore, each distinct set of network parameters defines a different network function and thus a different steering strategy. The problem of searching the optimal steering strategy is now equivalent to the problem of searching the optimal set of network parameters. Evolutionary algorithms that work on a population of (artificial) chromosomes are used to find the optimal network parameters, because the parameters can be easily mapped onto a chromosome. The trajectory optimization problem is solved when the optimal chromosome is found. A comparison of solar sail trajectories that have been published by others [2, 3, 4, 5] with ENC-trajectories has shown that ENCs can be successfully applied for near-globally optimal spacecraft control [1, 6] and that they are able to find trajectories that are closer to the (unknown) global optimum, because they explore the trajectory search space more exhaustively than a human expert can do. The obtained trajectories are fairly accurate with respect to the terminal constraint. If a more accurate trajectory is required, the ENC-solution can be used as an initial guess for a local trajectory optimization method. Using ENC, low-thrust trajectories can be optimized without an initial guess and without expert attendance. Here, new results for nuclear electric spacecraft and for solar sail spacecraft are presented and it will be shown that ENCs find very good trajectories even for very difficult problems. Trajectory optimization results are presented for 1. NASA's Solar Polar Imager Mission, a mission to attain a highly inclined close solar orbit with a solar sail [7] 2. a mission to de ect asteroid Apophis with a solar sail from a retrograde orbit with a very-high velocity impact [8, 9] 3. JPL's \2nd Global Trajectory Optimization Competition", a grand tour to visit four asteroids from different classes with a NEP spacecraft}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{DachwaldWurm2009, author = {Dachwald, Bernd and Wurm, P.}, title = {Mission analysis for an advanced solar photon thruster}, series = {60th International Astronautical Congress 2009, IAC 2009}, volume = {8}, booktitle = {60th International Astronautical Congress 2009, IAC 2009}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, isbn = {978-161567908-9}, pages = {6838 -- 6851}, year = {2009}, abstract = {The so-called "compound solar sail", also known as "Solar Photon Thruster" (SPT), is a solar sail design concept, for which the two basic functions of the solar sail, namely light collection and thrust direction, are uncoupled. In this paper, we introduce a novel SPT concept, termed the Advanced Solar Photon Thruster (ASPT). This model does not suffer from the simplified assumptions that have been made for the analysis of compound solar sails in previous studies. We present the equations that describe the force, which acts on the ASPT. After a detailed design analysis, the performance of the ASPT with respect to the conventional flat solar sail (FSS) is investigated for three interplanetary mission scenarios: An Earth-Venus rendezvous, where the solar sail has to spiral towards the Sun, an Earth-Mars rendezvous, where the solar sail has to spiral away from the Sun, and an Earth-NEA rendezvous (to near-Earth asteroid 1996FG3), where a large orbital eccentricity change is required. The investigated solar sails have realistic near-term characteristic accelerations between 0.1 and 0.2mm/s2. Our results show that a SPT is not superior to the flat solar sail unless very idealistic assumptions are made.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{DachwaldOhndorfSpurmannetal.2009, author = {Dachwald, Bernd and Ohndorf, Andreas and Spurmann, J. and Loeb, H. W. and Schartner, Karl-Heinz and Seboldt, Wolfgang}, title = {Mission design for a SEP mission to saturn}, series = {60th International Astronautical Congress 2009 (IAC 2009)}, booktitle = {60th International Astronautical Congress 2009 (IAC 2009)}, publisher = {Curran Associates, Inc.}, address = {Red Hook, NY}, isbn = {978-1-61567-908-9}, pages = {11 Seiten}, year = {2009}, abstract = {Within ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 plan, a mission to explore the Saturnian System, with special emphasis on its two moons Titan and Enceladus, was selected for study, termed TANDEM (Titan and Enceladus Mission). In this paper, we describe an optimized mission design for a TANDEM-derived solar electric propulsion (SEP) mission. We have chosen the SEP mission scenario for the interplanetary transfer of the TANDEM spacecraft because all feasible gravity assist sequences for a chemical transfer between 2015 and 2025 result in long flight times of about nine years. Our SEP system is based on the German RIT ion engine. For our optimized mission design, we have extensively explored the SEP parameter space (specific impulse, thrust level, power level) and have calculated an optimal interplanetary trajectory for each setting. In contrast to the original TANDEM mission concept, which intends to use two launch vehicles and an all-chemical transfer, our SEP mission design requires only a single Ariane 5 ECA launch for the same payload mass. Without gravity assist, it yields a faster and more flexible transfer with a fight time of less than seven years, and an increased payload ratio. Our mission design proves thereby the capability of SEP even for missions into the outer solar system.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{BorggraefeDachwald2010, author = {Borggr{\"a}fe, Andreas and Dachwald, Bernd}, title = {Mission performance evaluation for solar sails using a refined SRP force model with variable optical coefficients}, series = {2nd International Symposium on Solar Sailing}, booktitle = {2nd International Symposium on Solar Sailing}, pages = {1 -- 6}, year = {2010}, abstract = {Solar sails provide ignificant advantages over other low-thrust propulsion systems because they produce thrust by the momentum exchange from solar radiation pressure (SRP) and thus do not consume any propellant.The force exerted on a very thin sail foil basically depends on the light incidence angle. Several analytical SRP force models that describe the SRP force acting on the sail have been established since the 1970s. All the widely used models use constant optical force coefficients of the reflecting sail material. In 2006,MENGALI et al. proposed a refined SRP force model that takes into account the dependancy of the force coefficients on the light incident angle,the sail's distance from the sun (and thus the sail emperature) and the surface roughness of the sail material [1]. In this paper, the refined SRP force model is compared to the previous ones in order to identify the potential impact of the new model on the predicted capabilities of solar sails in performing low-cost interplanetary space missions. All force models have been implemented within InTrance, a global low-thrust trajectory optimization software utilizing evolutionary neurocontrol [2]. Two interplanetary rendezvous missions, to Mercury and the near-Earth asteroid 1996FG3, are investigated. Two solar sail performances in terms of characteristic acceleration are examined for both scenarios, 0.2 mm/s2 and 0.5 mm/s2, termed "low" and "medium" sail performance. In case of the refined SRP model, three different values of surface roughness are chosen, h = 0 nm, 10 nm and 25 nm. The results show that the refined SRP force model yields shorter transfer times than the standard model.}, language = {en} }