This edition was organised by Lorenzo Casalino of the Turin Polytechnic Energetic Department. The problem statement was released to the community on the 12th November 2007.
In a nutshell
An asteroid sample return mission had to be designed to 3 out of 140 asteroids. Earth fly-bys were allowed. The objective function was the ratio between the final spacecraft mass and the total mission time plus a term rewarding longer stay times on the asteroids to increase the science return.
- List of registered teams
- Problem statement
- Problem data
- Requested output file format
- Final rankings
- Original web site (contains all teams presentations)
The Winners
Led by Regís Bertrand, the team from Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) won this edition with a trajectory employing four Earth fly-bys.
Curiosities
The first four best trajectories selected the same asteroid sequence and differed only by the location and number of extra Earth fly-bys.
The final objective function values of the best trajectories were extremely close.