“LICIACube – the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids” is managed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and will be part of the NASA DART mission, with the aim of i) documenting the DART ...impact’s effects on the secondary member of the (65803) Didymos binary asteroid system, ii) characterizing the shape of the target, and iii) performing dedicated scientific investigations on it. DART probe will be launched at the end of 2021 and LICIACube will be hosted as piggyback during the interplanetary cruise, then released 10 days before the impact, and autonomously guided along its fly-by trajectory. The LICIACube payload is composed by LEIA, a narrow FoV camera, and LUKE, a wide FoV imager with an RGB Bayer pattern filter, that will collect and transmit to Earth several unique images of the effects of the DART impact on the asteroid, such as the formation and the development of the plume potentially determined by the impact.
LICIACube will be the first deep space mission developed and autonomously managed by an Italian team: the design, integration and test of the CubeSat have been assigned by ASI to the aerospace company Argotec, while the LICIACube Ground Segment has a complex architecture based on the Argotec Mission Control Center, antennas of the NASA Deep Space Network and data archiving and processing, managed at the ASI Space Science Data Center. The LICIACube team includes a wide 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 data. The major technological mission challenge, i.e. the autonomous targeting and imaging of such a small body during a fast fly-by, to be accomplished with the limited resources of a CubeSat, is affordable thanks to a strong synergy of all the mentioned teams in support of the engineering tasks.
-LICIACube is the first purely Italian spacecraft operating in deep space.-LICIACube is managed by the Italian Space Agency and will be part of the NASA DART mission.-It will analyze the output of the first kinetic impact test at a realistic scale.-The payload is composed by LEIA, a narrow FoV camera, and LUKE, a wide FoV imager with an RGB Bayer pattern filter.-Aims: documenting the DART impact on Dimorphos; characterizing the target shape; performing scientific investigations.
Orbit generation in non-Keplerian environments poses some challenges related to the complex dynamical nature in which such trajectory exist. The absence of a parametric representation of the orbits ...requires an iterative approach to define families. Simple methods exist to fulfill such task, however, they are based on local information and prone to convergence/speed problems. A polynomial-based scheme is proposed to improve the search of the solutions along the orbital families, enhancing the overall speed of the process, while avoiding convergence issues. The scheme is tested in the framework of Earth–Moon system, and performances are discussed and compared to classical approaches.
The High Energy Modular Ensemble of Satellites (HERMES) project is aimed to realize a modular X/gamma-ray monitor for transient events, to be placed on-board of a nano-satellite bus (e.g. CubeSat). ...This expandable platform will achieve a significant impact on Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) science and on the detection of Gravitational Wave (GW) electromagnetic counterparts: the recent LIGO/VIRGO discoveries demonstrated that the high-energy transient sky is still a field of extreme interest. The very complex temporal variability of GRBs (experimentally verified up to the millisecond scale) combined with the spatial and temporal coincidence between GWs and their electromagnetic counterparts suggest that upcoming instruments require sub-microsecond time resolution combined with a transient localization accuracy lower than a degree. The current phase of the ongoing HERMES project is focused on the realization of a technological pathfinder with a small network (3 units) of nano-satellites to be launched in mid 2020. We will show the potential and prospects for short and medium-term development of the project, demonstrating the disrupting possibilities for scientific investigations provided by the innovative concept of a new “modular astronomy” with nano-satellites (e.g. low developing costs, very short realization time). Finally, we will illustrate the characteristics of the HERMES Technological Pathfinder project, demonstrating how the scientific goals discussed are actually already reachable with the first nano-satellites of this constellation. The detector architecture will be described in detail, showing that the new generation of scintillators (e.g. GAGG:Ce) coupled with very performing Silicon Drift Detectors (SDD) and low noise Front-End-Electronics (FEE) are able to extend down to few keV the sensitivity band of the detector. The technical solutions for FEE, Back-End-Electronics (BEE) and Data Handling will be also described.
Resilience can be interpreted as the capacity to overcome sudden negative events, including those caused by environmental impacts, by minimizing their effects. Through the application of circular ...economy, built environment can be more resilient, decoupling the human well-being by resources consumption and waste generation. Within a circular approach, buildings are considered "material banks" and materials reuse/recycling is promoted. In this context, it is important to verify the life cycle sustainability of the new circular practices, linking the economic and environmental sustainability with circularity. In fact, resource efficiency and waste management in term of reduction of material flows, don't represent certainly sustainable solutions. In this paper, LCA and LCC methodologies, which are scientific methodologies used to quantitatively assess the environmental and economic impacts, are investigated. Through a literature review, the paper analyses the state of the art regarding the application of Life Cycle tools for evaluating circular strategies, at the building level and at material level; then the use of Life Cycle tools for decision-making in the circular design process is investigated. Through the scientific literature review, the methodological assumption to assess the sustainability in decision-making is shown. Finally, the limitation of the methodology is highlighted and the improvement necessary to promote the use of Life Cycle tools in decision-making is discussed.
The paper presents a part of research focused on the definition of circular economy models in the regeneration of existing building stock in the Italian context, identifying policies improvements, ...strategic partnership and environmental and economic life cycle assessment tools for supporting decision. Through direct-interviews to operators (investors, designers, manufacturers, etc.), the paper analyses the typical relationships and dynamics among them in the Italian building regeneration process. The operators' opinions and requests towards circular strategies (reuse/recycling at building and material levels) are pointed out, in order to highlight the obstacles and levers of circular economy application. The paper shows the strengths and the weaknesses for the regeneration of building stock by the application of circular economy, the opportunities and the threats for circular economy by its application in the regeneration of building stock. In order to achieve circular requalification processes, avoiding waste and enabling practices of reuse and recycling, the change of relationships, policies and business models are defined. Moreover, the paper discusses on the importance of environmental evaluation of circular practices, identifying the decision steps and operators which, with the support of environmental and economic life cycle assessment tools, can select circular strategies towards sustainable requalification process.
We calculate the charge susceptibility and the linear and differential conductances of a double quantum dot coupled to two metallic reservoirs both at equilibrium and when the system is driven away ...from equilibrium. This work is motivated by recent progress in the realization of solid state spin qubits. The calculations are performed by using the Keldysh nonequilibrium Green function technique. In the noninteracting case, we give the analytical expression for the electrical current and deduce from there the linear conductance as a function of the gate voltages applied to the dots, leading to a characteristic charge stability diagram. We determine the charge susceptibility which also exhibits peaks as a function of gate voltages. We show how the study can be extended to the case of an interacting quantum dot.
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