CubeSat with Nanostructured Sensing Instrumentation for Planetary Exploration

This report provides a summary of the work performed under NIAC Phase I award NNX15AL86G entitled "CubeSat with Nanostructured Sensing Instrumentation for Planetary Exploration". The objective of this research is to investigate the feasibility of an innovative, low cost, CubeSat based planetary mission concept for in situ "ground truth"analysis of small asteroids and comets. The project includes an instrument study and a mission/spacecraft design study. The instrument study concerns with the development of anew TiO2 nanotube sensor with integrated compound semiconductor nanowires to determine surface composition element via neutron activated analysis (NAA). The mission/spacecraft design study concerns with the development of CubeSat based lander to small asteroids and comets. The Phase I study suggests that our concept is feasible and could provide significant benefit to NASA's future planetary missions. This research was carried out at the University of Southern California and the University of Utah.