PhD candidates Martina Rusconi and Xiaodong Lu from the COMPASS group took part in the 29th International Symposium on Space Flight Dynamics (ISSFD) held at ESA/ESOC in Darmstadt, Germany on 22-26 April 2024.
Specialists in the field of space flight dynamics and related applications in different areas of interest were at the conference, exchanging ideas and providing insights on research and operational activities from various space agencies.
Martina presented her work on ‘Active feedback control on post-mission disposal compliance to limit the space debris proliferation’. Her PhD research is part of the ERC-funded #GreenSpecies project on the development of an interdisciplinary framework for the modelling of the space debris population, and the control of its evolution.
Xiaodong gave a presentation entitled “Analytical approach leveraging orbital perturbations for spacecraft end-of-life disposal design”, introducing an end-of-life disposal manoeuvres design technique targeting an Earth re-entry, using a triple-averaged model for orbital perturbations. The exploitation of the triple- averaged model significantly reduces computational burden of manoeuvre optimisation.