Enabling Studies on the Effects of Gravity Through Ground-Based Research: The Use and Limitations of the Random Positioning Machine

Access to microgravity has benefits across a large variety of fields. It presents unique features including the absence of convection, sedimentation, and buoyancy, which introduce new possibilities within physical and chemical processes. The dominance of diffusion in microgravity allows more uniform and precise structures to be formed within...

Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimisation of Inflatable Stacked Toroid Decelerators: A Novel Framework Advancing Mars Exploration

Future Mars exploration missions require safe and controlled landing on the planet’s surface. Conventional entry, descent and landing (EDL) technologies, such as parachutes and rigid aeroshells, face limitations in meeting increasing demands for heavier payloads, harsher entry conditions, and desired landing locations due to their limited...

Photon-sail periodic orbits around the Lagrange points of the Alpha-Centauri system

The first mission proposals to visit the Alpha Centauri system use photon-sail acceleration as a mode of propulsion to reach this stellar system closest to our own Solar System. To prepare for a future mission, the photon-sail dynamics in the system is investigated. Planar Lyapunov orbits around the colinear classical Lagrange points are...

Assimilation of Swarm C atmospheric density observations into NRLMSISE-00: Analysis on the accuracy of orbit prediction

The accurate prediction of satellite orbits is essential for the proper functioning of space-based services such as navigation, communication, and Earth observation. However, atmospheric drag is a significant source of error in satellite orbit prediction, especially in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), where the majority of space objects operate. The...

Trajectory Optimization Methods for Low-Thrust Kuiper Belt Flyby Missions

The Kuiper belt is one of the last mostly unexplored regions in the Solar System. Exploration of the Kuiper belt can greatly increase humanity's understanding of the Solar System's formation and evolution. The use of low-thrust propulsion for Kuiper belt missions has the potential to improve the payload mass of the mission due to the high...

Online Surrogate Models for the Constrained Optimization of Interplanetary Low-Thrust Trajectories

The optimization of interplanetary, low-­thrust trajectories is a computationally expensive aspect of preliminary mission design. To reduce the computational burden associated with it, surrogate models can be used as cheap approximations of the original fitness function. Training the surrogate models in a fully online manner can be done to...

Targetless Camera-LiDAR Calibration for Autonomous Systems

In recent decades, the field of autonomous driving has witnessed rapid development, benefiting from the development of artificial intelligence-related technologies such as machine learning. Autonomous perception in driving is a key challenge, in which multi-sensor fusion is a common feature. Due to the high resolution and rich information, the...

Horizontal wind influence on satellite aerodynamics at the edge of space

To be able to understand and predict space weather better, global in-situ satellite measurements are needed at an altitude of 100-150 km. However, due to the high density, space weather induced winds and the lack of data, it is a challenge to design a satellite mission to that region. Therefore, in this thesis, the influence of horizontal wind...

AWESOM: Airborne Wind Energy System on Mars

Global Optimization of Low-Thrust Interplanetary Trajectories Using a Machine Learning Surrogate

In this thesis, a new method to approximate the cost function of Low-Thrust, Multiple-Gravity-Assist interplanetary trajectories using a Machine Learning surrogate is proposed. This method speeds up the optimization process without fine tuning of the surrogate parameters for every individual case. The computational cost of obtaining training...

Geodetic parameter estimation for small-satellite small-body missions: An uncertainty-driven approach

This thesis work has been motivated by the growing interest in small-spacecraft small-body missions and more specifically inspired by a proposed mission to the largest Martian Trojan (5261) Eureka. This binary asteroid represents a promising target for a planetary mission, as a better understanding of its formation and evolution would provide...

Finding similarities between the deep mantle structures of Earth & Mercury

Large Low Shear-Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs) in Earth have been recognized in seismic data for several decades. The anomalies are however still poorly understood for reasons including their inconvenient location in the deep mantle, inhibiting progress in our understanding. Comprehension of these structures is important, because of their...

Investigating the use of neural network surrogate models in the evolutionary optimization of interplanetary low-thrust trajectories

Building on recent advances in the fields of low-thrust trajectory optimization based on shaping methods, Artificial Neural Networks, and surrogate models in Evolutionary Algorithms, an investigation into a novel optimization routine is conducted. A flexible Python tool to evaluate linked trajectories in a two-body model based on the hodographic...

A Lasercom terminal for CubeSats: Sizing, analysis and experimental verification

Research on laser communication technology for satellites has led to a sufficient understanding of this technology to start working on commercial applications. In this work a design is proposed for a lasercom system for CubeSats, a type of nanosatellites that is used increasingly often for commercial missions. The goal of this design is to offer...