Acta Astronautica最新文献

{"title":"Optimal near-perilune maneuvers in powered lunar flybys to distant retrograde orbits","authors":"Qingqing Li,&nbsp;Nan Zhang,&nbsp;Fanghua Jiang,&nbsp;Junfeng Li","doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.013","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.013","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Powered Lunar Flyby (PLF) is an orbital transfer technique in which a maneuver is performed during a lunar gravity assist to reduce mission fuel consumption. However, the commonly adopted strategy in PLF involves applying an impulsive thrust along the direction of velocity at the perilune. This paper examines the efficiency of this conventional perilune maneuver and investigates the optimal near-perilune maneuver by considering both the maneuver location and impulse direction as free variables. The analysis is conducted within the scenario of a spacecraft departing from a low Earth orbit (LEO) to rendezvous with a space station positioned in a lunar distant retrograde orbit (DRO) using a three-impulse trajectory optimization method. The main findings of this research include: (1) Far-side and near-side PLF trajectories are identified. For far-side PLFs, there exists a certain DRO phase angle under which the optimal maneuver position is at the perilune, while for near-side PLFs, the optimal maneuver is always not at the perilune. (2) The velocity increments for perilune and near-perilune maneuvers are similar when the DRO phase angle is near optimal, but can differ by up to 207 m/s when the phase angle deviates significantly from the optimal value. (3) In scenarios with a fixed transfer duration, not restricting the DRO insertion angle to the phase angle will help reduce the velocity increment. The results provide strategic guidance for the optimization of PLF maneuvers and valuable insights for reducing the fuel consumption in future practical missions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":44971,"journal":{"name":"Acta Astronautica","volume":"238 ","pages":"Pages 467-477"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145096643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Badminton in space: Assessing physical and mental well-being of astronauts during extended isolation","authors":"Aagam Jain ,&nbsp;Pushpdant Jain","doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.044","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.044","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The sport of badminton has gained attention as a potential fitness activity for astronauts on extended space missions, offering a way to maintain physical health and improve coordination. This research investigates the feasibility of integrating badminton into space missions, focusing on its psychological and physical benefits. Conducted during a Moon Simulation Analog Astronaut Mission at the HI-SEAS Base in Hawaii, the study explores the impact of badminton on astronauts' well-being. Using the mood map survey technique, the research tracks emotional fluctuations and stress levels among five crew members from Belgium, Israel, India, and the U.S., identified as Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo. Data is collected before, during, and after badminton sessions, assessing mood, stress, resilience, and other psychological indicators. The results show that badminton significantly improves astronauts' psychological health, increasing energy and positive emotions while reducing fatigue and stress. The study also explores preferences such as shuttlecock choice and indoor versus outdoor play. Overall, the research highlights badminton as a promising tool for enhancing astronauts’ mental health and physical fitness during long-duration missions, offering both immediate and long-term benefits for space mission well-being. Our collected data of analog mission has the potential benefits, highlighting that further research is needed to assess feasibility and effectiveness in microgravity or deep space.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":44971,"journal":{"name":"Acta Astronautica","volume":"238 ","pages":"Pages 560-567"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145110032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of inlet air temperature and mass flow rate on the performance of a liquid kerosene/air rotating detonation ramjet combustor","authors":"Xiafei Li ,&nbsp;Wu Jin ,&nbsp;Jianzhong Li ,&nbsp;Qian Yao ,&nbsp;Qiongyao Qin ,&nbsp;Li Yuan","doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.043","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.043","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A systematic numerical study of a liquid kerosene/air rotating detonation ramjet combustor under high mach number conditions was conducted using the Euler–Lagrange method. The effects of inlet air temperature and mass flow rate on two-phase flow distribution, detonation-wave propagation, and combustor performance were analyzed. Results show that under non-premixed injection, the detonation wave couples positively with atomization and mixing, while two additional modes—parasitic combustion (autoignition ahead of the detonation wave front) and commensal combustion (secondary burning of unreacted fuel)—reduce the detonation contribution and degrade performance compared with gaseous premixed models. The total inlet air temperature has a significant influence on the detonation propagation mode. At lower temperatures, insufficient reactant reactivity results in a single detonation mode with weaker intensity. As the temperature increases, intensified parasitic combustion may trigger new detonation waves, leading to a double detonation mode with two co-rotating waves. At excessively high temperatures, large-scale parasitic combustion occurs ahead of the detonation front, causing wave decoupling and unstable propagation. Thus, combustor performance does not monotonically increase with temperature; instead, there exists an optimal temperature that balances the proportions of parasitic and commensal combustion to achieve maximum performance. Moreover, reducing the outlet contraction ratio effectively suppresses parasitic combustion and prevents unstable detonation modes. Increasing air mass flow enhances reactant filling and resistance to backflow, raises combustor pressure, enlarges detonation-wave dimensions, and increases both detonation contribution and volumetric heat release rate, thereby continuously improving thrust and specific impulse.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":44971,"journal":{"name":"Acta Astronautica","volume":"238 ","pages":"Pages 495-516"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145096645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"EPOS-Lid: Lidar benchmark dataset for pose estimation during non-cooperative rendezvous","authors":"Léo Renaut,&nbsp;Ksenia Klionovska,&nbsp;Maximilian Albracht,&nbsp;Heike Frei","doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.030","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.030","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Lidar sensors are increasingly studied for space rendezvous applications, in particular for on-orbit servicing or active debris removal missions. With their active measurement principle, they provide accurate 3D point clouds which enable precise pose estimation. While simulated lidar data is relatively simple to generate under ideal conditions, real lidar point clouds can present high levels of noise and reflections. There is the need for representative lidar data to train and test pose estimation methods for non-cooperative space rendezvous scenarios. This work introduces <em>EPOS-Lid</em>, an openly available lidar benchmark dataset for this task. It comprises a synthetic dataset for training pose estimation methods, and real lidar point clouds collected at the European Proximity Operations Simulator (EPOS). Further, it is demonstrated with evaluation of benchmark methods how the datasets can be used for training and testing pose initialization and pose tracking methods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":44971,"journal":{"name":"Acta Astronautica","volume":"238 ","pages":"Pages 414-423"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145096639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A box-wing-like solar radiation pressure model for GPS satellites and its impact on precise point positioning","authors":"Yi-Hsuan Tsai ,&nbsp;Tzu-Pang Tseng ,&nbsp;Kun-Lin Chen ,&nbsp;Cheng-Yung Huang ,&nbsp;Wen-Hao Yeh ,&nbsp;Tung-Yuan Hsiao","doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.027","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.027","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study is mainly to propose a box-wing-like model, termed EBOXW, for handling the solar radiation pressure (SRP) effect on GPS satellite. This EBOXW model assumes the different radiation effects on both the solar panel and satellite bus. We use 20 years (from 2001 to 2020) of GPS orbits as pseudo observations to check the EBOXW performance using the so-called orbit fitting technique. We find that the GPS orbit residuals from the orbit fitting show the periodic variations, which are associated with the SRP model and the GPS Block types. In this work, both the ECOM1 and the ECOM2 SRP models are used to validate the EBOXW model for the effectiveness. Overall, the orbit residuals range from −5 cm to +5 cm for all GPS Block types. In a closer inspection, the ECOM-based model induces more pronounced periodic variation in both the along-track and cross-track directions of IIR-M and IIF satellites than the EBOXW model does. This can be attributed to the periodic terms introduced in the e_D direction of the ECOM-based model. In comparison, the EBOXW model estimates the D0 acceleration only on the satellite X and Z sides, as well as the solar panel. Besides, the three models commonly introduce the significant periodic variation in the radial direction for all block types. Overall, the three models work similarly for the II and IIA satellites. The EBOXW presents the relatively well fitting to the IGS orbit for the IIR-M and IIF satellites, as compared to the ECOM-based model. In the end, we use the precise point positioning (PPP) as an external validation for assessing the impact of the SRP models on positioning. Although the improvement of the PPP solution is insignificant in the EBOXW case, the proposed EBOXW model effectively minimizes the orbital residual bias found in the ECOM-based models for all Block types. This work mainly provides an alternative SRP model for the orbit fitting technique and the related applications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":44971,"journal":{"name":"Acta Astronautica","volume":"238 ","pages":"Pages 517-524"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145097102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Biochar derived from plant waste improves seedling growth by influencing the physical structure and nutrient content of simulated lunar soil","authors":"Chuang Mei ,&nbsp;Gengxin Xie ,&nbsp;Ya Han ,&nbsp;Miaomiao Peng","doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.033","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.033","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The utilization of native lunar soil and recycled organic waste as primary resources can effectively reduce reliance on terrestrial inputs and improve the self-sufficiency of bioregenerative life support system for future lunar bases. However, lunar soil differs considerably from Earth's soil as it lacks organic carbon and the associated nutrients necessary for plant growth. To address these challenges, biochar can be produced by recycling the organic waste generated in a BLSS. As an environmentally friendly amendment, biochar can enhance the structure and nutrient content of soil and promote plant growth. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the suitability of native lunar soil for plant growth and assess how its agronomic performance is affected by the addition of biochar derived from plant waste. Compared with the control treatment, rice straw biochar treatment significantly improved the physical and chemical properties of the lunar soil simulant (<em>p</em> &lt; 0.05), increasing the organic matter content by 91.02 % and enhancing N availability by 69.68 %, P availability by 82.83 %, and K availability by 21.60 %. Redundancy analysis suggested that soil air porosity, total P, and available K, were critical factors influencing lettuce growth. The optimal amount of biochar to amend simulated lunar soil should be set at 3 %. The experimental findings demonstrated that the addition of biochar to the simulated lunar soil had positive effects on its chemical and physical properties, as well as its potential for supporting plant growth.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":44971,"journal":{"name":"Acta Astronautica","volume":"238 ","pages":"Pages 790-803"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145221010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Electron accumulation effects on photocatalytic activity of energy storage MoO3 photocatalysts in vacuum for spacecraft contamination control","authors":"Naoki Shimosako ,&nbsp;Kaito Takahashi ,&nbsp;Akira Yokoya ,&nbsp;Chisako Kanzaki ,&nbsp;Eiji Miyazaki ,&nbsp;Hiroshi Sakama","doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.028","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.028","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigated the photocatalytic activity of MoO<span><math><msub><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>3</mn></mrow></msub></math></span> films under vacuum conditions to elucidate the role of photoexcited electron accumulation in the deactivation of photocatalysis, particularly in the field of spacecraft contamination control. The decomposition of citric acid under UV irradiation in vacuum was monitored using mass-loss measurements obtained with a quartz crystal microbalance. Results show that only <span><math><mrow><mn>13</mn><mo>.</mo><mn>95</mn><mspace></mspace><mi>μ</mi><mi>g</mi></mrow></math></span>/cm<span><math><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup></math></span> of the initial <span><math><mrow><mn>50</mn><mspace></mspace><mi>μ</mi><mi>g</mi></mrow></math></span>/cm<span><math><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup></math></span> contaminant was decomposed, indicating the limited photocatalytic activity of MoO<span><math><msub><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>3</mn></mrow></msub></math></span> in vacuum. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and photographic observations confirmed the reduction of Mo<span><math><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>6</mn><mo>+</mo></mrow></msup></math></span> to Mo<span><math><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>5</mn><mo>+</mo></mrow></msup></math></span> and the occurrence of photochromism in MoO<span><math><msub><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>3</mn></mrow></msub></math></span> after UV exposure. Notably, photocatalytic activity was restored following prolonged exposure to ambient air. These findings demonstrate that, in vacuum, the absence of atmospheric oxygen leads to electron accumulation, which deactivates the photocatalyst. This insight is crucial for the development of photocatalysts capable of long-term operation in spacecraft applications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":44971,"journal":{"name":"Acta Astronautica","volume":"238 ","pages":"Pages 460-466"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145096642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Analysis of resonant multi-revolution Halo orbits for solar sail spacecraft in Sun–Mercury system","authors":"Dawei Wang,&nbsp;Dong Ye,&nbsp;Yan Xiao","doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mercury, as the closest planet to the Sun, experiences intense solar radiation pressure (SRP), making it an ideal target for solar-sail-based exploration. This study investigates resonant Halo orbits (RHOs) around the L1 and L2 Lagrange points in the Sun–Mercury system under the elliptic restricted three-body problem (ERTBP) with the inclusion of SRP. RHOs with resonances of 3:1, 4:1, 5:2, 6:2, and 7:2 were systematically generated, with 6:2 RHOs arising from period-doubling bifurcations of 3:1 RHOs. The continuation process involved transitioning resonant orbits from the circular restricted three-body problem (CRTBP) to the ERTBP and incrementally incorporating SRP effects. A direct collocation method replaced traditional multiple-shooting techniques to enable larger continuation steps while maintaining acceptable computational efficiency and stable convergence. Additionally, the influence of the solar sail’s area-to-mass ratio on orbital geometry and stability was thoroughly analyzed. Finally, the RHOs are transitioned into quasi-Halo orbits under a high-fidelity ephemeris model to assess the feasibility for actual mission applications. Results indicate that the quasi-Halo orbits remain stable over durations ranging from 264 to 528 days. This work enhances understanding of the dynamical behavior of RHOs in the Sun–Mercury system and provides critical insights for the design of solar-sail missions for Mercury exploration.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":44971,"journal":{"name":"Acta Astronautica","volume":"238 ","pages":"Pages 424-442"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145096640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Safe motion planning for spacecraft formation reconfiguration based on high-order control barrier function","authors":"Ziyi Fan,&nbsp;Zongyu Zuo","doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper presents a distributed motion planning framework for safely reconfiguring spacecraft formations to desired configurations. A control Lyapunov function based guidance strategy is developed to guarantee convergence while satisfying control rate constraints. To ensure collision avoidance during maneuvering, a high-order control barrier function based approach is integrated to impose safety constraints between spacecraft. Actuator saturation is explicitly handled by incorporating output constraints into the control design. The overall guidance and planning problem is formulated as a constrained quadratic programming problem, which yields optimal, collision-free trajectories in real time. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method enables safe and efficient formation reconfiguration without compromising convergence or violating actuator limits.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":44971,"journal":{"name":"Acta Astronautica","volume":"238 ","pages":"Pages 369-376"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145096635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Speeding up slows down: A potential paradox of innovation curtailment in nomadic societies engaged in interstellar relativistic traffic","authors":"Grzegorz Sadlok","doi":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.023","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.09.023","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>An object moving through space with a relativistic speed, close to that of a photon in a vacuum (<span><math><mi>c</mi></math></span>), experiences time dilation—the flow of time slows down for objects in motion. This phenomenon makes traversing huge interstellar distances possible within a human lifetime. If not for engineering limitations, this could open up interstellar travel for humanity. However, time dilation makes sustaining a society’s coherence challenging. A social transition toward a nomadic lifestyle has been offered as a potential solution to this problem. The paper further explores this idea and speculates on the impact that time dilation could have on the innovation rate of a theoretical society of interstellar nomads. The paper argues that a nomadic lifestyle would, in fact, curtail innovation, causing such a society to fall behind a stationary civilization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":44971,"journal":{"name":"Acta Astronautica","volume":"238 ","pages":"Pages 393-397"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145096637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}