On the 1st of March, our Giacomo Borelli successfully defended his PhD thesis, “Strategies for Safe Operations of Removal and Servicing Missions in Low Earth Orbit”, at Politecnico di Milano to be awarded the doctoral degree in Aerospace Engineering.
His research developed novel strategies to design the operations and trajectories of satellites in the delicate phases of proximity during In Orbit Servicing (IOS) and Active Debris Removal (ADR) missions. The topics ranged from the mission analysis of multiple ADR missions, to far and close range GNC, inspection motion planning, and contactless control of target rotational motion. The methodologies provided useful advancement in the safety of these novel mission architectures. The strategies developed were applied to the phase A study of the SpEye mission, funded by the Alcor programme of Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI).
