HEИндивидуална стипендия2023–2025

FAAST · Facilitating Autonomy in Astrodynamics for Spacecraft Technology

„Хоризонт Европа“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2023-07-16 → 2025-07-15
Финансиране от ЕС: 172 750 €
Участници: 1
Схема: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

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Накратко на български

Алгоритми за автономно управление на орбитата помагат на малки космически кораби да планират пътя си сами, вместо да зависят от команди от Земята. Това намалява разходите за експлоатация и позволява по-ефективно изследване на дълбокия космос с ограничени изчислителни ресурси.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Facilitating Autonomy in Astrodynamics for Spacecraft Technology

Recent decades have seen reduced cost to deliver payloads to orbit, as well as miniaturization and modernization of spacecraft technology. These trends foresee a near future where small, low-cost space missions will be carried out on a regular basis by a variety of public and private organizations. Another trend, mostly visible in terrestrial technologies, is automation, powered in parallel by advances in computing and the proliferation of computers in commercial products. An important bottleneck in the current state-of-the-art for spaceflight is that the onboard computational capabilities in spacecraft are still quite limited, due to the need for radiation-hardened onboard computers to survive the harsh deep space environment. As a result, deep-space spacecraft must still be cautiously controlled remotely from the ground by teams of engineers, using dedicated deep-space communications infrastructure of limited capacity. Thus, despite the falling cost-to-orbit and the advancement of space technology, operation costs stemming from such activities remain stubbornly high. To propel a scalable future for space exploration, there is a strong need for autonomous capability that can operate with limited computational resources and at a level of safety and reliability worthy for use on invaluable spacecraft. The main goal of FAAST is to develop robust and computationally efficient algorithms for autonomous orbit guidance and control for low-cost space vehicles which must plan and re-plan their trajectories in an uncertain environment. This is achieved by the following four objectives: 1. Develop and validate a new approach that facilitates computationally feasible onboard techniques. 2. Ensure that the new formulation can be applied to the highly uncertain space environment. 3. Apply the new implementation to develop an algorithm for autonomous orbit guidance in a relevant test problem. A successful algorithm should be computationally lean and robust, facilitating on-board planning and re-planning. 4. High-fidelity testing of the algorithm and study of high-fidelity modeling of the space environment.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

The FAAST project (Facilitating Autonomy in Astrodynamics for Spacecraft Technology) is proposed for developing autonomous guidance and control algorithms for CubeSats and other interplanetary spacecraft. This project will be conducted with Prof. Francesco Topputo of the DART group at Politecnico di Milano (Polimi) in Italy, which has expertise in deep-space guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) from its past and present involvement with ESA projects, including multiple CubeSat missions. The primary focus of FAAST is on autonomous orbit guidance and control for deep-space scientific space missions - a challenging problem which currently must be handled by dedicated teams of engineers on Earth which support the spacecraft's operations. In particular, this work is concerned with autonomous guidance and control in the vicinity of asteroids, which presents a particularly challenging environment. The FAAST project will contribute to, benefit from, and interface with the DART group's EXTREMA project, a 5 year (2021-2026) €2M project funded by the European Research Council. EXTREMA is developing new GNC techniques for self-driving spacecraft. FAAST proposes research activity that spans from fundamental developments in celestial mechanics and astrodynamics to specific algorithm development and demonstration in a high-fidelity setting. This presents an ambitious course of research for a two-year project, but it is well-organized into four achievable objectives. The researcher holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado Boulder, a leading institution in spaceflight education and research. The supervisor is a Full Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Polimi, and a leading expert in spacecraft GNC and interplanetary CubeSats. This project has the potential to meaningfully advance the state-of-the-art in spacecraft guidance and control while facilitating transatlantic cooperation between the US and EU spaceflight research communities.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

POLITECNICO DI MILANO · MilanoКоординаторИталия