Hydrogen Peroxide as an Oxidiser for Medium-Lift Launch Vehicles: A Performance and Integration Analysis

Cryogenic and semi-cryogenic propellants are the most commonly used liquid propellants for applications in medium-lift launch vehicles. Despite their high performance, the storage requirements for these propellants often lead to complex, heavy, and voluminous structures. The only storable propellant used in medium-lift launch vehicles, UDMH/NTO,...

Attitude & orbital control system design for near-Earth asteroid exploration using autonomous miniature satellites

The thesis explores designing an attitude and orbital control system for an autonomous 6U CubeSat near-Earth asteroid fly-by mission, aiming to conceptualize an off-the-shelf solution. It addresses selecting propulsion systems for interplanetary travel, reaction wheel desaturation, and attitude control during the mission.<br/><br/>Through a fuel...

Trajectory Optimization of a Planetary Sunshade

A planetary sunshade is a large, reflecting disk built to shield the Earth from a small fraction of solar irradiance, partly compensating global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. As a specific form of solar geoengineering, the sunshade is an emergency solution that would be implemented to prevent catastrophic climate change, while...

Point cloud based improvement of the trajectory of a Railway Mobile Mapping System

Absolute accuracy plays a crucial role in most geospatial applications. Particularly in the case of mobile mapping systems (MMS) where large amounts of data are collected, it comprises a key factor that can sometimes be dangerously underestimated. Within the scope of mobile laser scanning, the accuracy of the measurements is mainly ruled by the...

Using Solar-sail Induced Dynamics to Increase the Warning Time for Solar Storms Heading Towards Earth

This paper investigates the use of solar-sail technology to increase the warning time for Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) heading towards Earth. In addition, this research will build upon the current understanding of using solar-sail dynamics with regards to CME detection by providing insights into the problem characteristics. The warning time is...

Time-Optimal Transfers Between Planar Solar-Sail Libration Point Orbits

This paper presents time-optimal transfer trajectories between planar solar-sail displaced libration point orbits around the $L_1$ and $L_2$ points of the Sun-Earth and Earth-Moon systems. Initial guesses for these transfers are generated as two-segment trajectories, with a fixed sail attitude along each segment. The position and velocity...

Mission Performance Assessment of a Box-Wing Aircraft: A Multiphase Optimal Control Approach Including Exploration of Unconventional Control

It is the aim of this research to assess the mission performance of a boxwing aircraft by developing a configurationagnostic, multifidelity optimal control toolbox for performance and mission analysis. The boxwing aircraft, sometimes named a PrandtlPlane (PrP), is an unconventional aircraft. An instance with redundant controls is designed within...

Optimizing a Solar Sailing Polar Mission to the Sun: Development and Application of a New Ant Colony Optimizer

In the context of metaheuristic global optimization, we present the definition and development of two new ant colony optimizers (ACO): a single-objective mixed-integer one, called ACOmi, and a multi-objective hypervolume-based one, called MHACO. In particular, after having performed a verification and validation phase over a wide set of problems...

A metaheuristic optimisation algorithm for network-wide 4D trajectory mid-term planning in a Trajectory Based Operations environment

To accommodate the fast growing air traffic in a safe and efficient way, an ATM paradigm shift from current Time Based Operations towards Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) is envisioned. TBO entails the exchange, maintenance and use of consistent 4D trajectory information for collaborative decision-making on the flight. This thesis addresses a...

Targeting a Mars science orbit from Earth using dual chemical-electric propulsion and ballistic capture

Ballistic capture is a relatively novel concept in interplanetary mission design with the potential to make Mars and other targets in the Solar System more accessible. A complete end-to-end interplanetary mission from an Earth-bound orbit to a stable science orbit around Mars (in this case, an areostationary orbit) has been conducted using this...

Solar-sail invariant objects in the Sun-Earth system and transfers to the L5 region

The development of solar-sail technology in combination with the rising interest in a mission to the Sun-Earth L5 region for heliophysics and the search for Trojan asteroids, raises the question of using solar sailing as the primary propulsion method to enable such a mission. This study therefore investigates different invariant objects and...

Earth–Mars low-thrust transfers with ballistic capture and real-Solar-System dynamics

The phenomenon by which a spacecraft can both approach a celestial body and start performing revolutions around it, without needing to manoeuvre in between, is known as ballistic capture. For ballistic capture to take place, the spacecraft must be under the gravitational influence of at least 2 celestial bodies. Therefore, it is possible to...

Trajectory Library based Guidance for Drones in Unknown Environment: A feasibility study

UAVs(Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) have gained popularity in various fields, and many applications require the drones to perform tasks in indoor environments. One major challenge in UAV indoor guidance is the absence of accurate GPS(Global Positioning System)<br/>signals. In this work, a novel guidance method is investigated which uses a library of...