Spacecraft Sample Collection
A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310). This special issue belongs to the section "Astronautics & Space Science".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2024 | Viewed by 581
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
On 24 September 2023, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully completed a seven-year mission to return to Earth a significant sample of the near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu. Also in recent years, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) returned samples to Earth of the near-Earth asteroid (162173) Ryugu and the Moon, respectively. These missions are just the latest examples of successful robotic planetary sampling missions that go back more than 50 years to when the former Soviet Union returned to Earth a total of several hundred grams of lunar material during the Luna program. But missions such as these are just the start. In the near-future, even more ambitious and difficult planetary sample return missions will be attempted. For instance, in September 2023, NASA released an independent review board report regarding its Mars sample return plan. This report highlighted the tremendous technical, cost and schedule challenges of such an endeavor as well as the tremendous scientific promise.
For this Special Issue, we invite contributions that describe lessons learned from previous robotic sample return missions as well as recent technological advances to identify, collect and return samples from locations in both the inner and outer Solar System. Submission of papers that include (but are not limited to) descriptions of mission design, trajectories, spacecraft architecture, back planetary protection, sampling techniques and hardware, spacecraft instrumentation, Earth entry systems, sample stowage and sample archiving is encouraged.
Dr. Brent J. Bos
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Aerospace is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- planetary sampling
- sampling techniques and hardware
- spacecraft instrumentation
