  A moon or natural satellite is a celestial body that orbits a planetary body
such as a planet, dwarf planet, or an asteroid. Scientists seek understanding
the origin and evolution of our solar system by studying moons of these bodies.
Additionally, searches for satellites of planetary bodies can be important to
protect the safety of a spacecraft as it approaches or orbits a planetary body.
If a satellite of a celestial body is found, the mass of that body can also be
calculated once its orbit is determined. Ensuring the Dawn spacecraft's safety
on its mission to the asteroid (4) Vesta primarily motivated the work of Dawn's
Satellite Working Group (SWG) in summer of 2011. Dawn mission scientists and
engineers utilized various computational tools and techniques for Vesta's
satellite search. The objectives of this paper are to 1) introduce the natural
satellite search problem, 2) present the computational challenges, approaches,
and tools used when addressing this problem, and 3) describe applications of
various image processing and computational algorithms for performing satellite
searches to the electronic imaging and computer science community. Furthermore,
we hope that this communication would enable Dawn mission scientists to improve
their satellite search algorithms and tools and be better prepared for
performing the same investigation in 2015, when the spacecraft is scheduled to
approach and orbit the dwarf planet (1) Ceres.
