Improved detection of a Near-Earth Asteroid from an interplanetary CubeSat mission

This study focuses on the autonomous detection of small (diameter < 50 m) faint (absolute magnitude > 20) Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) cameras during the approach phase of interplanetary CubeSat missions. To address the challenge of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in COTS CubeSat sensors, a design tool was developed that incorporates camera parameters, asteroid parameters, approach phase geometry and an Earth-observation based SNR boosting technique, to ensure the autonomous detection of small NEAs during the approach phase. The tool generates a synthetic SNR that meets the target asteroid detection requirements (SNR >= 7) by stacking multiple frames of the target asteroid. The design tool defines requirements at the camera and trajectory design levels, exploring the problem design space of an asteroid rendezvous CubeSat mission. The validation of the tool was carried out using the NEA Scout asteroid and NEA Scout CubeSat mission requirements. The results demonstrate that the autonomous detection of small faint NEAs is achievable when the asteroid's positional uncertainty is within the CubeSat sensor's field of view. These findings have implications for current and future CubeSat missions to NEAs, offering insights into the feasibility of using off-the-shelf cameras for asteroid detection.