Mars NanoOrbiter: A CubeSat for Mars System Science
Abstract
The Mars NanoOrbiter mission consists of two identical 12U spacecraft, launched simultaneously as secondary payloads on a larger planetary mission launch, and deployed to Earth-escape, as early as with Mars 2020. The nominal mission will last for 1 year, during which time the craft will independently navigate to Mars, enter into elliptical orbit, and achieve close flybys of Phobos and Deimos, obtaining unprecedented coverage of each moon. The craft will additionally provide high temporal resolution data of Mars clouds and atmospheric phenomena at multiple times of day. Two spacecraft provide redundancy to reduce the risk in meeting the science objectives at the Mars moons and enhanced coverage of the dynamic Mars atmosphere. This technology is enabled by recent advances in CubeSat propulsion technology, attitude control systems, guidance, navigation and control. NanoOrbiter builds directly on the systems heritage of the MarCO mission, scheduled to launch with the 2018 Discovery mission Insight.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #49
- Pub Date:
- October 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017DPS....4941825E