ORCID

0009-0003-2741-027X

Keywords

Asteroid, Gravity Field, Trajectory, Spacecraft, Polyhedral Method, Small Bodies

Abstract

Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and other irregular celestial bodies have become increasingly significant targets for scientific investigation and space mission development due to their relevance to resource utilization, origins-of-life studies, planetary defense, and understanding of early solar system formation. As launch costs continue to decline, missions such as NASA’s NEAR Shoemaker, OSIRIS-REx and JAXA’s Hayabusa series demonstrate the expanding feasibility of detailed small body exploration. Despite this growing interest, most standard astrodynamics tools are not designed to model the complex, highly irregular gravitational fields that are a signature of small bodies. Such limitations pose challenges for trajectory design, navigation, and control during close-proximity operations, where the effects of non-uniform mass distribution become significant. This thesis develops a computational framework that implements the Polyhedral Method to model the gravitational fields of irregular bodies within MATLAB. The framework provides an efficient and extensible tool for generating high fidelity gravity models directly from polyhedral shape representations. To ensure reproducibility and adaptability, the thesis also outlines guidelines for translating the implementation to other programming languages. The developed model is validated through simulations conducted on multiple asteroid targets, including the extensively characterized asteroid 433 Eros. Comparison against similar established polyhedral simulations demonstrates that the MATLAB implementation accurately reproduces the expected gravitational environment for bodies with homogeneous density assumptions. The results confirm the viability of this framework as a practical tool for supporting preliminary mission design, close flyby analysis, and spacecraft guidance and control development in non cooperative asteroid environments. By enabling fast and reliable gravitational characterization, the presented framework contributes to advancing mission readiness for future NEA exploration efforts.

Completion Date

2026

Semester

Spring

Committee Chair

do Vale Pereira, Paula

Degree

Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering (M.S.A.E.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

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