A Cubesat Centrifuge for Long Duration Milligravity Research

Abstract

We advocate a low-cost strategy for long-duration research into the 'milligravity' environment of asteroids, comets and small moons, where surface gravity is a vector field typically less than 1/1000 the gravity of Earth. Unlike the microgravity environment of space, there is a directionality that gives rise, over time, to strangely familiar geologic textures and landforms. In addition to advancing planetary science, and furthering technologies for hazardous asteroid mitigation and in-situ resource utilization, simplified access to long-duration milligravity offers significant potential for advancing human spaceflight, biomedicine and manufacturing. We show that a commodity 3U ($10\times10\times34$ cm$^3$) cubesat containing a laboratory of loose materials can be spun to 1 rpm = $2\pi/60$ s$^{-1}$ on its long axis, creating a centrifugal force equivalent to the surface gravity of a kilometer-sized asteroid. We describe the first flight demonstration, where small meteorite fragments will pile up to create a patch of real regolith under realistic asteroid conditions, paving the way for subsequent missions where landing and mobility technology can be flight-proven in the operational environment, in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). The 3U design can be adapted for use onboard the International Space Station (ISS) to allow for variable gravity experiments under ambient temperature and pressure for a broader range of experiments.