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Scheeres, D.J.

Publications and source records attributed to Scheeres, D.J..

Satellite Dynamics about Asteroids

Current space goals for NASA include planned and proposed missions to asteroids. These missions generally call for a period of orbital operations in close proximity to the asteroid, in some cases coming within 2 radii of the asteroid. A challenge for the navigators of these missions is to predict the orbital environment about the asteroid and to derive pre-mission plans for the control of these orbits. This paper investigates the major perturbations asteroid orbiters will encounter over a range of relevant asteroid sizes.

asteroid