Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube, ) is a six-unit

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

of the

Italian Space Agency The Italian Space Agency ( it, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana; ASI) is a government agency established in 1988 to fund, regulate and coordinate space exploration activities in Italy. The agency cooperates with numerous national and international entit ...

(ASI). LICIACube is a part of the

Double Asteroid Redirection Test Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is a NASA space mission aimed at testing a method of planetary defense against near-Earth objects (NEOs). It was designed to assess how much a spacecraft impact deflects an asteroid through its transfer ...

(DART) mission and carries out observational analysis of the Didymos asteroid binary system after DART's impact on

Dimorphos (65803) Didymos I Dimorphos (provisional designation S/2003 (65803) 1) is a minor-planet moon of the near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos, with which it forms a binary system. It has a diameter of and has been characterised as a low-density rubb ...

. It communicates directly with

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

, sending back images of the ejecta and plume of DART's impact as well as having done asteroidal study during its flyby of the Didymos system from a distance of , 165 seconds after DART's impact. LICIACube is the first purely Italian autonomous spacecraft in deep space. Data archiving and processing is managed by the Space Science Data Center (SSDC) of the ASI.

History

LICIACube is the first deep space mission developed and autonomously managed by an Italian team. To collaborate upon the design, integration, and testing of the CubeSat, the

selected the aerospace company

Argotec Argotec is an aerospace engineering company based in Turin whose research, innovation and product development activities use engineering and computing for space applications and renewable energy systems. Particular attention is also given to the ...

, while the LICIACube GS has a complex architecture based on a mission control center in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

hosted by Argotec and science operation center in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. Antennas of the

NASA Deep Space Network The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) is a worldwide network of American spacecraft communication ground segment facilities, located in the United States (California), Spain (Madrid), and Australia (Canberra), that supports NASA's interplanetary ...

(NASA DSN) and data archiving and processing is managed at the ASI SSDC. The scientific team making this cubesat is led by National Institute of Astrophysics

INAF The National Institute for Astrophysics ( it, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, or INAF) is an Italian research institute in astronomy and astrophysics, founded in 1999. INAF funds and operates twenty separate research facilities, which in turn e ...

(OAR, IAPS, OAA, OAPd, OATs) with the support of IFAC-CNR and

Parthenope University of Naples The Parthenope University of Naples ( it, Università degli Studi di Napoli "Parthenope") is one of the universities located in Naples, Italy. Historical notes Now one of the fully accredited universities of Naples, the “Parthenope” Universi ...

. The team is supported by the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

for orbit determination and satellite navigation and the

Polytechnic University of Milan The Polytechnic University of Milan () is the largest technical university in Italy, with about 42,000 students. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and higher education courses in engineering, architecture and design. Founded in 186 ...

, for mission analysis and optimisation. The LICIACube team includes the wider Italian scientific community involved in the definition of all the aspects of the mission: trajectory design; mission definition (and real-time orbit determination during operations); impact, plume and imaging simulation, and modelling, in preparation of a suitable framework for the analysis and interpretation of

in situ ''In situ'' (; often not italicized in English) is a Latin phrase that translates literally to "on site" or "in position." It can mean "locally", "on site", "on the premises", or "in place" to describe where an event takes place and is used in ...

data. Major technological challenges during the mission (autonomous targeting and imaging of such a small body during a fast flyby with the limited resources of a CubeSat) is affordable thanks to cooperation between the mentioned teams in support of the engineering tasks.

Satellite design

In order to deal with the mission, the Argotec platform uses an autonomous navigation system, two light solar arrays, an integrated propulsion system with thrusters of 50mN thrust and isp of 40s, two cameras, an

X-band The X band is the designation for a band of frequencies in the microwave radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In some cases, such as in communication engineering, the frequency range of the X band is rather indefinitely set at approxim ...

communication system, and an advanced on-board computer.

Scientific payload

LICIACube is equipped with two optical cameras for conducting asteroidal reconnaissance during flyby, dubbed LEIA (LICIACube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid), a

Catadioptric A catadioptric optical system is one where refraction and reflection are combined in an optical system, usually via lenses (dioptrics) and curved mirrors (catoptrics). Catadioptric combinations are used in focusing systems such as searchlights, he ...

camera, a narrow

field of view The field of view (FoV) is the extent of the observable world that is seen at any given moment. In the case of optical instruments or sensors it is a solid angle through which a detector is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation. Humans a ...

( FoV) of 2.06°, 25

microradian The radian, denoted by the symbol rad, is the unit of angle in the International System of Units (SI) and is the standard unit of angular measure used in many areas of mathematics. The unit was formerly an SI supplementary unit (before that ...

/pixel, 2048x2048 pixels, monochrome, achieving a best resolution of 1.38 m/pix at closest approach) camera, and LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer), a wide 5° FoV imaging camera with an RGB Bayer pattern infrared filter. These captured scientific data revealing the composition of the asteroid and provided data for its autonomous system by finding and tracking the asteroid throughout the encounter. As it was released when DART sped up for its intentional impact, it took an image every 6 seconds during DART's impact period. It had preliminary flyby targets including taking 3 high resolution images revealing the asteroid's morphology concentrating on the physics of the asteroid and plume generations after impact. This may help characterise the consequences of the impact.

Mission profile

Launch

LICIACube was manufactured in Italy and sent to

Applied Physics Laboratory The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL) is a not-for-profit University Affiliated Research Center, university-affiliated research center (UARC) in Howard County, Maryland. It is affiliated w ...

(APL) of

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

in September 2021. On 8 September 2021, the LICIACube was integrated into the DART spacecraft for launch on 24 November 2021, at 06:21:02 UTC, inside a spring-loaded box placed on the wall of the DART spacecraft.

Goals

LICIACube's goals are to: * Document the effect of DART's impact on the secondary member of the 65803 Didymos binary asteroid system * Characterise the shape of the target * Perform dedicated scientific investigations on it

Cruise phase and flyby

After the launch, the Cubesat remained enclosed within a spring-loaded box and piggybacks with the DART spacecraft for almost the entire duration of DART's mission. It separated on 11 September 2022 from DART by being ejected at roughly relative to DART, 15 days before impact. After release, as part of the testing process to calibrate the miniature spacecraft and its cameras, LICIACube captured images of a crescent Earth and the

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of ...

star cluster Star clusters are large groups of stars. Two main types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of ten thousand to millions of old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters are more loosely clust ...

, also known as the Seven Sisters. It conducted 3 orbital manoeuvrers for its final trajectory, which flew it past Dimorphos about 2 minutes 45 seconds after DART’s impact. That slight delay allowed LICIACube to confirm impact, observe the plume’s evolution, potentially capture images of the newly formed impact crater, and view the opposite hemisphere of Dimorphos that DART never saw, while drifting past the asteroid.Dimorphos (65803) Didymos I Dimorphos (provisional designation S/2003 (65803) 1) is a minor-planet moon of the near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos, with which it forms a binary system. It has a diameter of and has been characterised as a low-density rubb ...