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UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Searching for Organics on the Dwarf Planet Ceres Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5m12g6m2 Author Nayak, Michael Publication Date 2016 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ SEARCHING FOR ORGANICS ON THE DWARF PLANET CERES A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in EARTH SCIENCES by Michael Nayak June 2016 The Thesis of Michael Nayak is approved: ____________________________________ Professor Francis Nimmo, chair ____________________________________ Professor Ian Garrick-Bethell ____________________________________ Professor Erik Asphaug ____________________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Michael Nayak 2016 Table of Contents List of Figures .................................................................................................................... iv Abstract ............................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ vi Chapter 1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2 Science Objectives ................................................................................... 3 2.1. Motivation for Ceres exploration ................................................................... 3 2.2. Plume Chaser as a follow-on to Dawn .......................................................... 6 2.3. Mission Architecture ...................................................................................... 9 2.4. Mission Science Goals and Objectives ........................................................ 11 2.4.1 Mass Spectrometer ................................................................................. 13 2.4.2 Infrared (IR) Spectrometer ..................................................................... 18 2.4.3 Visible Wavelength Camera .................................................................. 19 2.5. Observation Window ................................................................................... 20 Chapter 3 Spacecraft Concept ................................................................................. 24 3.1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 24 3.2. Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) ................................. 26 3.3. Propulsion Module ....................................................................................... 27 3.4. Telecommunications .................................................................................... 28 3.5. Trajectory Design ......................................................................................... 29 Chapter 4 Conclusions ............................................................................................ 36 Chapter 5 Supplementary Information .................................................................... 38 Chapter 6 References .............................................................................................. 40 iii List of Figures Figure 2.1: Altitude versus time after impact: Distribution of ejected particle velocities. Velocities are with reference to the Ceres surface. ........................... 21 Figure 3.1: Baseline design for Plume Chaser and Plume Maker .............................. 25 Figure 3.2. Cubesat Ambipolar Thruster (CAT) engine (Aether Industries) .............. 27 Figure 3.3: Interplanetary trajectory for Plume Chaser. Courtesy Fan Yang-Yang. .. 31 Figure 3.4: Interplanetary trajectory for Plume Maker. Courtesy Fan Yang-Yang. ... 31 Figure 3.5: Depth-diameter curves vs. impact angle for impact velocities of (a) 1 km -1 -1 -1 s , (b) 5 km s , (c) 10 km s . Diameter of the crater (Dcrater, blue line), ejected mass in tons (red line) and depth of the crater for an icy surface (Hcrater, green line) are shown. This analysis is based on relations from [Holsapple, 1993] and [Richardson et al., 2007]. ................................................................................... 32 iv Abstract Searching for Organics on the Dwarf Planet Ceres by Michael Nayak The Herschel Space Observatory recently detected the presence of water vapor in observations of Ceres, bringing it into the crosshairs of the search for the building blocks of life in the solar system. I present a mission concept designed in collaboration with the NASA Ames Research Center for a two-probe mission to the dwarf planet Ceres, utilizing a pair of small low-cost spacecraft. The primary spacecraft will carry both a mass and an infrared spectrometer to characterize the detected vapor. Shortly after its arrival a second and largely similar spacecraft will impact Ceres to create an impact ejecta “plume” timed to enable a rendezvous and sampling by the primary spacecraft. This enables additional subsurface chemistry, volatile content and material characterization, and new science complementary to the Dawn spacecraft, the first to arrive at Ceres. Science requirements, candidate instruments, rendezvous trajectories, spacecraft design and comparison with Dawn science are detailed. v Acknowledgements This work was largely performed on location at the NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California. I would like to gratefully acknowledge financial support under and awarded by the Department of Defense, National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship, 32 CFR 168a, with supplementary support provided by Red Sky Research, LLC. Computational support was provided by the NASA Ames Mission Design Division (Code RD) through a contract with the University of California Santa Cruz University Affiliated Research Center (UARC). I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Dr. Pete Worden, Dr. Steve Zornetzer, Dr. Alan Weston (NASA), and Col. Carol Welsch, Lt. Col Joe Nance and Lt. Col Brian Bracy (USAF), for enabling my unconventional departure from the beaten path onto this academic adventure. I sincerely thank my reading committee for their patience in reviewing this work: Francis Nimmo (UCSC), Ian Garrick-Bethell (UCSC) and Erik Asphaug (Arizona State University). I would also like to acknowledge my co-authors on this project, who were all affiliated with the NASA Ames Research Center at the time of publication (2016): David Mauro, Jan Stupl, Jonathan Aziz, Anthony Colaprete, Andres Dono-Perez, Chad Frost, Jonas Jonsson, Christopher McKay, Derek Sears, Michael Soulage, Jason Swenson and Fan Yang-Yang. I acknowledge contributions to this work by Tori Hoehler, Alfonso Davila, Eldar Noe, John Karcz, Andrew Gonzales, Sasha Weston, Benjamin Klamm, Larry Lemke, Hugo Sanchez, Anthony Genova, Brian Lewis and James Bell (Ames vi Research Center) and Benjamin Longmier and David Hash (University of Michigan). In no particular order, I would also like to thank Elizabeth Hyde, Jenna Scarpelli, Jennifer Fish, Christina Doolittle, Kay Nayak, Annie Nayak and Grace Persico. Finally and most importantly, none of this would be possible without the grace and blessing of the Lord. The text of this thesis includes modified reprints of Nayak et al. (2016), Adv. Sp. Res. Vol. 57, Issue 5, pp. 1133-1146; all co-authors are listed above, supported this research and helped design the Plume Chaser mission referenced herein. The text of this paper is used with the permission of all co-authors. Opinions, interpretations and recommendations expressed are mine alone and are not necessarily endorsed by NASA, the US Air Force or the Department of Defense. vii Chapter 1 Introduction The Herschel Space Observatory recently detected the presence of water vapor in observations of Ceres [Küppers et al., 2014], bringing it into the crosshairs of the search for the building blocks of life in the solar system. This work presents a mission concept for a two-probe mission to the dwarf planet Ceres, utilizing a pair of small low-cost spacecraft. The primary spacecraft, Plume Chaser, will carry a mass spectrometer and an infrared spectrometer to characterize the vapor. Shortly after its arrival a second and largely similar spacecraft, Plume Maker, will impact Ceres to create an impact ejecta “plume” timed to coincide with Plume Chaser flying through the ejecta. This rendezvous mission enables additional subsurface chemistry, volatile content and material characterization, as well as new science complementary to that of the Dawn spacecraft. The search for organics and the assessment of habitability form the core of the mission’s objectives, making it a natural follow-on to Dawn. We demonstrate that a pair of spacecraft inside a cost cap of $200M can fulfill these objectives. Science requirements, candidate instruments, rendezvous trajectories, spacecraft design and comparison with science from the Dawn spacecraft are detailed. The low cost of the design enables the exploration of multiple solar system bodies in a reasonable 1 timeframe despite budgetary constraints. The volume of the spacecraft enables launch to Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) as a secondary payload, providing multiple launch opportunities per year. 2 Chapter 2 Science Objectives