# Evaluation of Mother-Daughter Architectures for Asteroid Belt Exploration

## TL;DR

This paper evaluates a mother-daughter nanosatellite architecture for asteroid belt exploration, analyzing its performance, trade-offs, and viability as an alternative to traditional survey methods.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel multi-nanosatellite system architecture deployed from a single mothership for asteroid exploration, with performance trade analyses and preliminary design insights.

## Key findings

- The architecture is feasible with current technology.
- Trade analyses optimize fuel use and mission parameters.
- Preliminary design shows potential for effective asteroid belt surveying.

## Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of an asteroid exploration architecture comprised of multiple nanosatellite sized spacecraft deployed from a single mother ship into a heliocentric orbit in the main asteroid belt where the mothership is ideally located in region of high density. Basic mission requirements associated with a Mother-Daughter architecture are established utilizing a relatively large number (10-20) daughter spacecraft distributed from a mothership within the asteroid belt for the purpose of executing sample and return missions. A number of trade analyses are performed to establish system performance to changes in initial orbit, delta-V capability and maximum small spacecraft flight time. The balance between the initial delta-V burn and asteroid velocity matching are also examined, with a goal of minimizing the amount of fuel needed in the small spacecraft. Preliminary requirements for the system are established using these results, and a conceptual design is presented for comparison to other asteroid exploration techniques. Preliminary results indicate that the aforementioned concept of a mothership with small spacecraft is viable and should be considered as an alternative approach to first order surveying of the asteroid belt.

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1812.11243