Satellite Formation Flying: Development and Implementation of a GNC System

This thesis report has explored the complex field of satellite formation flying, focusing on Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) strategies for maintaining formations of multiple satellites. The research has been guided by a series of research questions aimed at improving the understanding and implementation of GNC systems for satellite...

Aerobraking Navigation, Guidance and Control: A Comparison of State Variables Performance in Propagation

The amount of propellant required to perform deep-space maneuvers usually consists of a large percentage of the total spacecraft mass. In the early '90s, a new technique was experimented at the end of the Magellan mission, which employed the atmosphere of Mars itself, to reduce the eccentricity of the orbit over a long period of time. Said...

Vision-based Autonomous Drone racing in GPS-denied Environments

High-speed autonomous flight of Micro Air Vehicles has gained much attention in recent years. However, flight in complex GPS-denied environments still poses a serious challenge. One scenario which contains these elements is drone racing, where pilots have to fly complex tracks at high speed, often in an indoor environment. In this work we...

Performance of a Flush Airdata Sensor in a Particle Filter-Based Re-entry Navigation System

Re-entry is a term that is applied when one would like to transport some (human) payload from an orbit around a certain body towards the surface of that body. With an entry velocity of multiple kilometers per second, having the vehicle carrying this payload not smashed into pieces at the end of flight is one of the key points of re-entry. Using...

Autonomous Nevigation of Nano-satellites during Earth-Moon Transfer