Riccardo Lasagni Manghi

Ephemeris estimation of Phobos and Deimos using the Hera opportunity flyby

In March 2025, the Hera s/c will perform a Mars flyby on its way to the binary asteroid system Didymos, which will provide an opportunity to refine the ephemerides estimation for the two Martian moons Phobos and Deimos.
The candidate will assess the expected performances of the orbit determination process by simulating Earth-based radiometric measurements (e.g., range and wide-band ΔDOR) and optical navigation images collected by Hera before, during, and after the flyby, using the current mission scenario. Furthermore, the candidate will perform a sensitivity analysis to assess how the measurement concept of operations affects the final trajectory reconstruction.

Modeling of light-curve observables for the Hera mission

Light-curves observables (i.e. time-varying magnitude of radiation flux received by an observer) are typically used to determine periods of rotation and/or revolution of target celestial bodies, provided a rough knowledge of their shape and size is available. This thesis aims to perform a detailed literature review of the mathematical models required to compute the light-curves for a target body and to implement these tools via Python (or C++) codes. The candidate will then apply these tools for the estimation of some key physical parameters of the binary asteroid system Didymos (target of the Hera mission), comparing the obtained results with those in the literature.