Andreas Frick

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Andreas Frick is a leading figure in small satellite and asteroid exploration, whose work bridges the gap between robotic reconnaissance and future human deep-space missions. His research centers on the characterization of Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and the development of low-cost, high-impact CubeSat technologies. Frick is best known for his foundational role on the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout (NEA Scout) mission, a pioneering solar sail-driven CubeSat designed to perform the first close-up reconnaissance of a NEA. This landmark study, cited 18 times, demonstrated how small, agile spacecraft can survey multiple asteroid targets, providing critical data on their size, shape, and rotation—key parameters for future resource utilization and planetary defense. Beyond this flagship project, Frick has contributed extensively to mission architecture and trajectory design for small-body encounters, helping to prove that CubeSats are not just educational tools but capable scientific platforms. His work has directly informed NASA’s human exploration roadmap, offering a scalable, cost-effective path to scout potential destinations. With a growing citation footprint, Andreas Frick is shaping the next era of asteroid science, proving that even the smallest spacecraft can make giant leaps in our understanding of the solar system.