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CubeSats and small satellites are emerging as low-cost tools for performingscience and exploration in deep space. These new classes of satellite exploitthe latest advancement in miniaturization of electronics, power systems, andcommunication technologies to promise reduced launch cost and developmentcadence. JPL's MarCO CubeSats, part of the Mars Insight mission, will head onan Earth escape trajectory to Mars in 2018 and serve as communication relaysfor the Mars Insight Lander during Entry, Descent and Landing. Incrementaladvancements to the MarCO CubeSats, particularly in propulsion and GNC, couldenable these spacecraft to get to another planet or to Near Earth Objects. Thiscan have substantial science return with the right science instrument. We havedeveloped an interplanetary CubeSat concept that includes onboard greenmonopropellant propulsion system and that can get into a capture orbit around aneighboring planet or chase a small-body. One such candidate is the Martianmoon Phobos. Because of the limits of current CubeSat hardware and lack of anaccurate ephemeris of Phobos, there will be a 2 to 5 km uncertainty in distancebetween the spacecraft and Phobos. This presents a major GNC challenge when theCubeSat first attempts to get into visual range of the moon. One solution tothis challenge is to develop optical navigation technology that enables theCubeSat to take epicyclic orbits around the most probable location of thetarget, autonomously search and home-in on the target body. In worst-casescenarios, the technology would narrow down the uncertainty of the small-bodylocation and then use optical flow, a computer vision algorithm to trackmovement of objects in the field of view. A dimly lit small-body can bedetected by the occlusion of one or more surrounding stars. Our studies presentpreliminary simulations that support the concept.

Optical Navigation for Interplanetary CubeSats