Related papers: Autonomous orbit determination for satelite format…
The exploration of interstellar space will require autonomous navigation systems that do not rely on tracking from the Earth. Here I develop a method to determine the 3D position and 3D velocity of a spacecraft in deep space using a star…
This work introduces the Spacecraft Pose Network (SPN) for on-board estimation of the pose, i.e., the relative position and attitude, of a known non-cooperative spacecraft using monocular vision. In contrast to other state-of-the-art pose…
A new era of space exploration and exploitation is fast approaching. A multitude of spacecraft will flow in the future decades under the propulsive momentum of the new space economy. Yet, the flourishing proliferation of deep-space assets…
On-orbit operations require the estimation of the relative 6D pose, i.e., position and orientation, between a chaser spacecraft and its target. While data-driven spacecraft pose estimation methods have been developed, their adoption in real…
We introduce a new method of searching for and characterizing extra-solar planets. We show that by monitoring the center-of-light motion of microlensing alerts using the next generation of high precision astrometric instruments the…
We present a theoretical foundation for relativistic astronomical measurements in curved space-time. In particular, we discuss a new iterative approach for describing the dynamics of an astronomical N-body system. To do this, we generalize…
In survey series of unknown Earth orbiting objects, no a priori orbital elements are available. In surveys of wide field telescopes possibly many nonresolved object images are present on the single frames of the series. Reliable methods…
Normal form stability estimates are a basic tool of Celestial Mechanics for characterizing the long-term stability of the orbits of natural and artificial bodies. Using high-order normal form constructions, we provide three different…
Optical tracking systems typically trade-off between astrometric precision and field-of-view. In this work, we showcase a networked approach to optical tracking using very wide field-of-view imagers that have relatively low astrometric…
Mega-constellations in Low Earth Orbit have the potential to revolutionise worldwide internet access. The concomitant potential of these mega-constellations to impact space sustainability, however, has prompted concern from space actors as…
The addition of an external starshade to the {\it Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope} will enable the direct imaging of Earth-radius planets orbiting at $\sim$1 AU. Classification of any detected planets as Earth-like requires both…
Estimating the 6-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) pose of a spacecraft from a single image is critical for autonomous operations like in-orbit servicing and space debris removal. Existing state-of-the-art methods often rely on iterative…
In the context of relativistic positioning, the coordinates of a given user may be calculated by using suitable information broadcast by a 4-tuple of satellites. Our 4-tuples belong to the Galileo constellation. Recently, we estimated the…
This paper introduces a set of customizable and novel cost functions that enable the user to easily specify desirable robot formations, such as a ``high-coverage'' infrastructure-inspection formation, while maintaining high relative pose…
In order to show the principle viability of a recently proposed relativistic positioning method based on the use of pulsed signals from sources at infinity, we present an application example reconstructing the world-line of an idealized…
Given a set of astrometric observations of the same object, the problem of orbit determination is to compute the orbit and to assess its uncertainty and reliability. For the next generation surveys, with much larger number density of…
We present new astrometric measurements from our ongoing monitoring campaign of the HR 8799 directly imaged planetary system. These new data points were obtained with NIRC2 on the W.M. Keck II 10 meter telescope between 2009 and 2014. In…
Automated 3D pose estimation of satellites and other known space objects is a critical component of space situational awareness. Ground-based imagery offers a convenient data source for satellite characterization; however, analysis…
The Einstein rings and proper motions of nearby stars tend to be large. Thus, every year some foreground stars within a few hundred parsecs of Earth induce gravitational lensing events in background stars. In some of these cases, the events…
Building and maintaining a space object catalog is necessary for space situational awareness. To realize this, one great challenge is uncooperative spacecraft maneuver detection because unknown maneuver events can lead to deviated orbital…