Names | Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids | ||||||
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Mission type | asteroidal exploration and study; planetary defense | ||||||
Operator | ASI | ||||||
COSPAR ID | 2021-110C | ||||||
Website | www | ||||||
Mission duration | ~6 to 7 months (planned) | ||||||
Spacecraft properties | |||||||
Spacecraft | LICIACube | ||||||
Spacecraft type | CubeSat | ||||||
Bus | 6U CubeSat | ||||||
Manufacturer | Argotec | ||||||
Launch mass | 14 kg (31 lb) | ||||||
Start of mission | |||||||
Launch date | 24 November 2021, 06:20 UTC (planned)[1] | ||||||
Rocket | Falcon 9 Block 5, B1063.3[2] | ||||||
Launch site | Vandenberg, SLC-4E | ||||||
Contractor | SpaceX | ||||||
Deployed from | Double Asteroid Redirection Test | ||||||
Flyby of Didymos system | |||||||
Closest approach | 2 October 2022 (planned) | ||||||
Distance | 55 km (34 mi) | ||||||
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Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) is a 6-unit Cubesat made by Italian Space Agency (ASI). LICIACube is a part of Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission and is built to carry out observational analysis of the Didymos asteroid binary system after DART's impact. It will communicate directly with Earth, sending back images of the ejecta and plume of DART's impact as well as do asteroidal study during its flyby of the Didymos system, 3 days after the Dart's impact.[3]
LICIACube will be the first purely Italian autonomous spacecraft in deep space, also for the Ground Segment, with data archiving and processing managed by the Space Science Data Center (SSDC) of ASI.
LICIACube will be the first deep space mission developed and autonomously managed by an Italian team: the design, integration and test of the CubeSat have been assigned by ASI to the aerospace company Argotec, while the LICIACube Ground Segment has a complex architecture based on the Argotec Mission Control Center, antennas of the NASA Deep Space Network and data archiving and processing, managed at the ASI Space Science Data Center. The scientific team making this cubesat is led by National Institute of Astrophysics INAF (OAR, IAPS, OAA, OAPd, OATs) with the support of IFAC-CNR and University Parthenope of Naples. The team is enriched by University of Bologna, for orbit determination and satellite navigation, and Polytechnic of Milan, for mission analysis and optimization. The LICIACube team includes a wide Italian scientific community, involved in the definition of all the aspects of the mission: trajectory design; mission definition (and real-time orbit determination during operations); impact, plume and imaging simulation and modelling, in preparation of a suitable framework for the analysis and interpretation of in-situ data. The major technological mission challenge, i.e. the autonomous targeting and imaging of such a small body during a fast fly-by, to be accomplished with the limited resources of a CubeSat, is affordable thanks to a strong synergy of all the mentioned teams in support of the engineering tasks.
In order to deal with the mission, the Argotec platform will use an autonomous navigation system, two light solar arrays, an integrated propulsion system, two cameras, X-band communication system and an advanced on-board computer.
LICIACube is equipped with two optical cameras for conducting asteroidal reconnaissance during flyby, dubbed LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer), a narrow FoV camera and LEIA (LICIACube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid), a wide FoV imager with an RGB Bayer pattern infrared filter. These will capture scientific data telling about the composition of the asteroid and inform it's autonomous system by finding and tracking the asteroid throughout the encounter. Due to it being released in a phase when dart will gear up for its intentional impact, it plans to take a image every 6 seconds during the Dart's impact period with preliminary targets of flyby being to take 3 high resolution images telling about the asteroid's morphology and rest being concentrating on the physics of the asteroid and plume generations after impact. This may help in characterising the consequences of the impact.
LICIACube was manufactured in Italy and sent to Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in September, 2021. There on September 8, 2021, the LICIACube was integrated on Dart Spacecraft for launch on 24 November, 2021, inside a spring-loaded box placed on the wall of Dart spacecraft.
After the launch the CubeSat will remain enclosed within a spring-loaded box and thus will be piggybacked with Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), almost the entire duration of Dart's mission. It will separate shortly by kicking out of a that box situated on (DART) spacecraft at roughly 2.5 miles per hour, 10 days before impact to acquire images of the impact and ejecta as it drifts past the asteroid, 3 days after the impact.[4][5][6][7]
After the flyby, it will spend a few weeks time in sending the data to the ground team and may die off or look for another potential asteroid visit depending on its health and remaining propellant stored in it after the flyby.
It is built with the aim of achieving: