The Bering mission space segment

Abstract

This paper describes the space segment of the proposed Bering Mission. The proposed mission shall autonomously discover near Earth objects (NEOs) and asteroids and determine their orbital parameters, light curve, surface characteristics and internal properties, mass, albedo, and acquire high quality images and magnetic properties. The mission proposed, will generate flux, size and orbital distributions of NEOs down to 2-20 m diameter, over most of the inner solar system. The mission proposed here, comprises two spacecraft flying in a loose formation for 7+ years in an elliptical orbit between /spl sim/0.7 AU (/spl sim/Venus orbit) and /spl sim/3.5 AU. A powerful suite of instruments is proposed. Each satellite has an Advanced Stellar Compass (ASC) system with 7 camera heads, a folding mirror based 0.3 m multi-spectral telescope imager, a boom-mounted magnetometer and a laser ranger. Bering is proposed as a slow spinner, which necessitates a rotationally symmetric body and the boom coincident with the axis of rotation. Other configurations are also under discussion, and the configuration presented in this paper only comprises initial ideas and discussions, which indeed need further analysis and design.