The COMPASS team attended the 70th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) hosted at the Walter E. Convention Center in Washington, D.C., from 21st to 25th October 2019.
IAC is one of the most relevant annual events on astronautics and space sciences and gathers thousands of attendees from all-over the world. This year’s edition featured very interesting keynote lectures, like the one by Dr. Nicola J. Fox (NASA) on the Parker Solar Probe, and the one by Dr. Enrico Flamini (ASI) on the achievements of the MARSIS instrument searching for water on Mars aboard ESA’s Mars Express. Along with the interesting presentations, the participants had the possibility to meet with the leading experts and decision makers from space agencies and get informed about the latest updates regarding space programs. Moreover, there was the chance to interact with distinguished public figures like the astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin.
The COMPASS team presented recent developments in the fields of astrodynamics and space debris. Marco Nugnes presented the latest results related to his research project which focuses on the optimisation of low-thrust trajectories using Differential Dynamic Programming (DDP) based on Keplerian orbital elements.
Juan Luis Gonzalo presented a semi-analytical approach to low-thrust collision avoidance manoeuvre design in the field of modelling and risk analysis for space debris.
Finally, Alessandro Latino presented his master thesis work related to Hayabusa2 mission for the definition of ejecta’s bouncing trajectories on Ryugu asteroid and on-orbit collision mechanism in the field of orbital dynamics.
