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Autonomous GN&C
The launching and manufacturing costs of spacecraft witnessed a significant decrease in the last decade. Operation costs, however, are still as relevant as in the past.
Efforts have been recently made to enable autonomous spacecraft GN&C in proximity of celestial bodies, such as asteroids, to reduce operations costs.
As we believe this aspect is key to augment the science outcome of space missions, part of our research focuses on enhancing spacecraft autonomy.
Interplanetary CubeSat missions
Celestial bodies’ exploration and exploitation will be the future of the space sector. However, interplanetary spacecraft missions are extremely expensive.
As Near-Earth CubeSats have shown incredible potential in terms of science outcome and overall costs, it is likely that they will soon be used in the context of deep-space missions as well.
Unfortunately, major challenges arise when interplanetary CubeSats are considered. Our group addresses them to disrupt the current paradigm of space missions and democratize the access to space.
System Design
In our vision, a multitude of miniaturized probes will soon pervade the inner solar system. We are actively contributing to make this happen: our team is directly involved in the design of some relevant CubeSats missions in cooperation with the European Space Agency.