Steerable Femtosat Constellations

NASA

Actively Steerable Femtosat Constellations for In-situ Exploration of Saturn’s Rings, Atmosphere, and Magnetosphere

Michael RubensteinNorthwestern University, Chicago We propose a mission to use ~10,000 actively steerable femtosats to map the ring composition, atmospheric composition and density, and the magnetic field distribution of Saturn. Conducting in-situ surveys of Saturn’s rings with a single flagship mission, such as Cassini, would carry an unacceptably high risk of mission failure due to particle collisions. However, the distributed nature…