LICIACube


Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids is a six-unit CubeSat of the Italian Space Agency. LICIACube is a part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission and carries out observational analysis of the Didymos asteroid binary system after DART's impact on Dimorphos. It communicates directly with Earth, 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 Mission Control Center of Argotec. Its mission ended in the autumn of 2022.

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 Italian Space Agency selected the aerospace company Argotec, while the LICIACube GS has a complex architecture based on a mission control center in Turin hosted by Argotec and science operation center in Rome. Antennas of the NASA Deep Space Network 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 with the support of IFAC-CNR and Parthenope University of Naples. The team is supported by the University of Bologna for orbit determination and satellite navigation and the Polytechnic University of Milan, 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 ; impact, plume and imaging simulation, and modelling, in preparation of a suitable framework for the analysis and interpretation of in situ data. Major technological challenges during the mission 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 attitude control system, two light solar arrays, an integrated propulsion system with thrusters of 50mN thrust and isp of 40s, two cameras, an X-band communication system, and an advanced onboard computer.

Scientific payload

LICIACube is equipped with two optical cameras for conducting asteroidal reconnaissance during flyby, dubbed LEIA, a Catadioptric camera, a narrow field of view camera, and LUKE, 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 of Johns Hopkins University 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 star cluster, 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.

Mission after flyby

After the flyby, the spacecraft spent several weeks downlinking image data. Potential targets were selected for an extended mission, including asteroid 14827 Hypnos on 3 June 2024. Signal with LICIACube was lost on 24 October 2022.Following unsuccessful attempts to reestablish contact, end of mission was declared on 23 December.

Results

Several images have been transmitted to Earth showing rays of impact debris streaming from Dimorphos.
On 28 September 2022, the first images of the impact from the LICIACube probe were published on a NASA web page.