CubeSat Exploration Missions to Binary Asteroids: on Board Autonomy and Intelligent Imaging Towards Science Return Enhancement

CubeSats exploitation for small bodies exploration may contribute to gather high value scientific data, but entails significant challenges for the GNC system, due to uncertain environment and currently limited technology capabilities of such small platforms. This paper proposes an autonomous navigation and pointing control for a CubeSat operating in close proximity of a binary system. An AI-based policy is included in the GNC system, to maximize the mission scientific return with autonomous decision making of the next best image acquisition time. The proposed approach considers typical CubeSat hardware capabilities and relies on light and robust algorithms.