CubeSat tandem flight for asteroid surveillance

Abstract

Conventional mining might not be sufficient to support the growth of humankind which is heavily dependent upon rare materials in technical applications. Asteroid mining might be an answer, with Near-Earth objects (NEOs) being the first targets. However, the first step in the asteroid mining cascade is to probe reachable asteroids. Moreover, to identify the best candidates for further activities hundreds to thousands of asteroids must be screened. The fast progressing development of CubeSats might allow the space community to do the initial in-situ screening in a minimalistical and economical manner. Additionally, formation flying might enable the miniaturization of optical payloads for asteroid composition analysis in CubeSats. The recent developments in formation flying are summarised in this study and the possibility of utilizing formation flying CubeSats for asteroid surveillance explored.