The Master thesis work of our student Christian Fusaro has been selected for publication in the ESA INTEGRAL Picture of the Month.
In his thesis, Christian, studies the disposal and demise of spacecraft in Highly Elliptical Orbits (HEO). He particularly focused on the connection between the long-term end-of-life behaviour and the detailed analysis of the destructive re-entry process. A novel methodology to identify such interface, based on the concept of overshoot boundary is presented and its sensitivity to entry conditions analysed. He tested his approach to the relevant case of the re-entry of the ESA INTEGRAL satellite.
The results presented in the ESA INTEGRAL POM are based on the following articles: