Erwin Mooij

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Delft University of Technology

Active debris removal missions are of paramount importance to mitigate the space debris problem around Earth. However, due to the complexity of such a debris removal mission, the first one is still to be launched. In particular, one critical technology enabler is presented by the guidance, navigation and control (GNC) system, as it is required to a...

Ensuring the sustainability of future space missions requires addressing the space-debris issue proactively. Space debris threatens future space missions, making the need for collision avoidance manoeuvres essential. This research explores robust methods to perform such manoeuvres, focusing on guidance and control systems, using the Starlink conste...

This paper investigates the efficacy of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based methods to navigate autonomously around asteroids. The main contribution of this work is the successful development of a first-of-a-kind pose estimation pipeline, consisting of a CNN-based feature detector and a Perspective-n-Points (PnP) solver to allow accurate, safe...

Rocket reusability is a key factor in enabling quicker and more cost-effective access to space. However, landing on Earth poses significant challenges due to the dynamic and highly uncertain environment. A robust Guidance, Navigation, and Control system is essential to guide the vehicle to the landing site while meeting terminal constraints and min...

After the discussion about the atmosphere and how to model the most relevant physical aspects, the moment has come to put a moving object into this atmosphere and find out how the two will interact with each other. After all, a lot has to happen between entering the atmosphere and landing on the surface of the planet below. To begin with, at entry...

Entry, descent, and landing systems (EDLS) should guarantee the safe delivery of either manned or unmanned payloads to the surface of a planet or a moon, with a certain specified terminal state. This could relate to the soft landing of a rover on Mars, astronauts on the Moon, or a sample-return mission to Earth. They all have in common that the pay...

During the course of the text, many different issues related to the entry and descent into a planetary atmosphere have been discussed. The critical nature of entry conditions have been made clear, and the relation with the aero-thermal environment has been established. Earlier, in Section 3.6 it was estimated that 1 kg of something in a 200 km orbi...

Our Solar System consists of 9 planets, hundreds of moons and thousands of smaller bodies, such as asteroids and comets. If we look at past and present missions it seems that at first sight most of these bodies are of no interest for studying the subject of re-entry. Russia and the United States sent their probes to Venus and Mars, the Americans la...

Compared to (conventional) aircraft entry vehicles have not only a completely different mission profile, but also significantly different characteristics. Vehicles like the Space Shuttle, for instance, have a geometrical design that is optimised for the hypersonic flight regime, whereas the cruise characteristics in the high subsonic regime determi...

Two important aspects of the entry and descent of space vehicles are the tactical aspect of having control over the time and location of landing, and the severe mechanical and thermal loading on the vehicle. For manned missions, for instance, the maximum deceleration is usually limited by an upper bound of 3 g to save the occupants from discomfort...

In Chap. 5 the different entry mechanisms were discussed, i.e., ballistic, gliding, and skipping flight. Each mission type had in common that they led to a landing on the target body, starting from a (closed) orbit around this body or reaching the atmospheric interface on an inbound trajectory, e.g., the Apollo returning from the Moon. Such a traje...

A spacecraft in Earth orbit has a large potential and kinetic energy: for each kg in a low Earth orbit the total energy amounts to about 30 MJ.

After setting the stage by discussing the flight environment and the external forces originating from that, i.e., the ones due to gravity and the aerothermodynamical loading, these forces will now be linked to the motion of the vehicle. This chapter approaches the topic from a more fundamental point of view, whereas in the next chapter the physical...

A space vehicle orbiting the Earth has large potential and kinetic energy—for each kg in a low Earth orbit the total energy amounts to about 30 MJ. This energy content will be even higher for vehicles entering the Earth’s sphere of influence at hyperbolic velocities, typically associated with return flights from the Moon or interplanetary trajector...

To maximize the payload mass, an aerocapture trajectory should be flown in such a way that both the final {\Delta}V and the total heat load are minimized. For some aerocapture missions, the heating due to radiation of high temperature gases in the shock-layer is so much larger than the heat due to convection, that the latter is negligible. This pap...

Within the last decade, the use of launch vehicles has increased as private companies have emerged in the space exploration industry. Compared to the early 1980s, the market for launch vehicles has become significantly more competitive, introducing the desire to have fully reusable launch vehicles. The true benefits of fully reusable launch vehicle...

This research performs a surrogate-assisted shape optimisation of hypersonic waveriders, where the trajectories of each shape are optimised with a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for heat-load and cross-range. A study on the best evolutionary algorithm, node control strategy for angle of attack and bank angle profiles, and population size to...

With the increasing interest in the Solar System's smaller bodies, quite a few missions have been sent to comets and asteroids, and more will be send in the near future. Due to the large distances involved, communication to command mission parameters takes a long time, which has a negative impact on operational safety. Autonomous navigation would b...

This paper investigates the performance of an autonomous navigation system to navigate a spacecraft in the proximity of a binary asteroid system using optical and laser ranging measurements. The knowledge about the binary asteroid is limited to its orbital parameters and ellipsoid shape models. The accelerometer bias random walk is included in the...

Parachute/flow interaction is dominant in evaluating a decelerator’s performance. Such interaction is characterized by nonlinear deformations and complex flow phenomena. While testing methods are available to investigate parachute performance, these are often costly and nonrepresentative of the desired flight conditions. To address the need for an...

This paper presents the development of a reefed Disk-Gap-Band (DGB) parachute with Huygens heritage for sounding rocket recovery. It starts with an overview of the rocket mission and then discusses the DGB design and geometric parameters. The integration of skirt reefing to minimize shock loads during inflation is explained. System verification tes...

Attitude control of conventional launchers is relatively easy and straightforward and gives an adequate performance when applied to the nominal vehicle and mission. However, in the presence of environmental disturbances and vehicle design uncertainties, more robust types of controllers are required to guarantee stable attitudes. This chapter discus...

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2022-0250.vid We present a 3 Degrees of Freedom mission design and analysis for in-situ probing of Uranus' atmosphere consisting of two un-propelled gliders and one orbiting spacecraft in continuous line of sight. We focus on the study of the gliders' navigation and science modules. Because of the...

The beginning of the conceptual design phase of (re)entry missions requires aerodynamic methods to reduce the initial design space. For this purpose, full computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are unsuitable due to their computational requirements. Rapid hypersonic methods are thus often employed to approximate the heat flux and skin frict...

In this paper a new drag-energy scheme for atmospheric entry guidance, based on the use of pseudospectral methods and convex optimization, is proposed. One of the most successful technologies to deal with atmospheric entry is the class of drag-tracking schemes, a direct heritage of the Space Shuttle program. The method that we propose exploits the...

Verified interval orbit propagation provides mathematically guaranteed solutions of satellite position and velocity over time. These verified solutions are useful for conjunction analysis and other space-situational-awareness activities. Unfortunately, verified methods suffer from overestimation and explosive interval growth, limiting the possible...

Space safety and hazard-reduction techniques for space-transportation vehicles are becoming critical in the advent of commercial crewed launches and suborbital intercontinental travel. One way to mitigate risks is to use advanced guidance strategies to centralise mission planning, and guidance, navigation and control. Convex optimisation can be sui...

Precision landing is an anticipated technology for future interplanetary missions. Autonomous spacecraft Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) on the surface of a planetary body with a degree of precision in the order of meters is highly challenging. In this paper, a successive convexification guidance algorithm is utilized to simulate autonomous precis...

Re-entry shape and trajectory optimisation studies typically require hundreds to thousands of flow solutions to resolve the heat transfer and skin friction. Due to the fact that full CFD simulations and even Euler simulations are typically very expensive, this work presents a development of a much simpler technique, in which the modified Newtonian...

This paper proposes a two-stage optimization approach for aerocapture guidance. In classical entry guidance systems, deterministic optimization is used. Large-scale and short-scale density perturbations may strongly affect the performance of the guidance system, and variations in those are usually not accounted for when computing the command. In th...

This paper focuses on the attitude control and propellant slosh suppression of aeroelastic launch vehicles. Four candidate controllers are proposed: the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR), the Incremental Non-linear Dynamic Inversion (INDI) control, the Incremental Sliding Mode Control (INDI-SMC), and the Feedback Linearisation-based Sliding Mode Con...

The Design/Synthesis Exercise (DSE) is the capstone project for the Bachelor of Science program at TU Delft, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. This paper highlights its conceptual foundations, as well as the project management and systems engineering aspects involved throughout the 10-week full-time exercise. Two DSE projects-one aircraft-related,...

In this paper, we combine the concepts of hyper-volume, ant colony optimization and nondominated sorting to develop a novel multi-objective ant colony optimizer for global space trajectory optimization. In particular, this algorithm is first tested on three space trajectory bi-objective test problems: an Earth-Mars transfer, an Earth-Venus transfer...

This paper examines the dynamics and control involved in the active removal of a large space debris - Envisat. In the light of European Space Agaency's e.deorbit mission, the current mission scenario consists of a chaser satellite, synchronising, capturing and detumbling the large uncooperative debris. A unique multibody approach based on floating...

The development of fully reusable launch systems has been the topic of many studies since the 1960s. Over the years, several aspects of both so-called single- and two-stage-to-orbit space planes have provided many interesting research topics. Amongst others, the constrained trajectory optimisation has proven to be a challenging subject. In this cha...

Next-generation planetary tracking methods, such as interplanetary laser ranging (ILR) and same-beam interferometry (SBI) promise an orders-of-magnitude increase in the accuracy of measurements of solar system dynamics. This requires a reconsideration of modelling strategies for the translational and rotational dynamics of natural bodies, to ensure...

Next-generation planetary tracking methods, such as interplanetary laser ranging (ILR) and same-beam interferometry (SBI) promise an orders-of-magnitude increase in the accuracy of measurements of solar system dynamics. This requires a reconsideration of modelling strategies for the translational and rotational dynamics of natural bodies, to ensure...

The space environment is ever-changing with the space structures getting larger and the orbits getting increasingly crowded with time. This creates a need for removal of large defunct satellites to avoid the disastrous Kessler syndrome, which poses a major threat to the future of space exploration. This paper examines the dynamics and control invol...

Simple adaptive control can be applied to any non-linear system, provided it is almost strictly passive. A necessary condition is that each control channel is single-input single-output. Winged re-entry vehicles, where reaction and aerodynamic control are combined, do not fulfill that condition. In particular, gliding vehicles at large angle of att...

Satellite reentry predictions are used to determine the time and location of impacts of decaying objects. These predictions are complicatedby uncertainties in the initial state and environment models, and the complex evolution of the attitude. Typically, the aerodynamic and error propagation are done in a simplistic fashion. Full six-degrees-of-fre...

Hazard-detection and avoidance systems will become an important asset for next-generation landing and exploration missions. To date, multiple studies into these systems were conducted to develop the methods needed and to demonstrate their performance in mainly software-based tests. Few studies were able to demonstrate the performance of the algorit...

In this paper a new drag-energy scheme, based on the use of pseudospectral methods and convex optimization, is proposed. One of the most successful technologies to deal with atmospheric entry is the class of drag-tracking schemes, a direct heritage of the Space Shuttle program. The method that we propose exploits the drag-dynamics, and allows for a...

Landing autonomously in hazardous environments is a very likely scenario for future exploration missions. Landing in hazardous but scientifically interesting sites on Mars or the Moon, returning to the surface of Venus or a landing on Europa are just a few examples for missions where hazards might be encountered during landing. These missions will...

Using the methods and models described in the previous chapters, we present the results of the shape optimization of the winged vehicle in this chapter. We start by discussing the results of a Monte Carlo analysis of the search space, from which we draw preliminary conclusions on the influence of the various constraint functions, and their correlat...

Using the methods and models described in the previous chapters, we present the results of the shape optimization of the capsule vehicle in this chapter. We start by discussing the results of a Monte Carlo analysis of the search space, from which we draw preliminary conclusions on the influence of the various contraint functions. Subsequently, we s...

The shape of an entry vehicle influences its performance primarily through the aerothermodynamic interaction with the atmosphere. In particular, the aerodynamic forces and moments, and the heat flux are crucial parameters driving the vehicle performance. Modelling the aerothermodynamic properties of re-entry vehicles is a highly complicated and mul...

In an optimization algorithm, the performance for each vehicle shape is independently assessed by generating the vehicle shape, generating an aerodynamic database, and numerically propagating the entry trajectory. In this chapter, we give a top-level overview of the implementation of the algorithm, with a focus on the interfaces between the various...

We apply our shape optimization methodology to two types of vehicles: a capsule shape and a winged-fuselage shape. In this chapter, we present the methods by which we parameterize these vehicle shape, e.g. the manner in which we relate the shape parameters that are to be optimized to a continuous vehicle shape. The capsule is defined by a combinati...

The numerical propagation of the dynamics of the re-entry vehicle is the core segment of the determination of the performance of the system. In this chapter, we review the models for the physical environment and the relevant aspects of the equations of motion for atmospheric entry. All relevant reference frames are discussed, and the transformation...

To optimize the shape of a generic winged vehicle, we generate the exterior of the vehicle from a discrete number of points. Computing a continuous vehicle surface from these points requires an interpolation algorithm. In this work, we use cubic splines and spline surfaces as the interpolation scheme. In this chapter the basics of these methods, as...

The optimization of vehicle shapes is performed using the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method, which is metaheuristic global optimization algorithm. In this chapter, we start by discussing the general problem of both single- and multi-objective global optimization, followed by a discussion of the PSO method, including the approach we use to fo...

The design and analysis of atmospheric entry has been an integral part of the developments in space engineering. In this chapter, we start by giving a historical perspective of a selection of the development of hypersonic flight and re-entry technology, followed by a presentation of some recent and upcoming projects in this area. Subsequently, we f...

This paper gives an overview about the Aurora reusable space launcher concept study that was initiated in late-2015/early-2016. Within the Aurora study, several spaceplane-like vehicle configurations with different geometries, propulsion systems and mission profiles will be designed, investigated and evaluated with respect to their technical and ec...

Examples of control problems occurring during flight tests of fighter aircraft are well documented. In many cases, the cause of the problem could be characterised as inadequate modelling or other inappropriate treatment of the aeroelastic effects on the vehicle dynamics and/or the flight-control design. However, such problems are not restricted to...

Predictions of the impact time and location of space debris in a decaying trajectory are highly influenced by uncertainties. The traditional Monte Carlo (MC) method can be used to perform accurate statistical impact predictions, but requires a large computational effort. A method is investigated that directly propagates a Probability Density Functi...

This paper investigates the efficacy of dual quaternion filtering in the realm of asteroid missions. The main contribution is the development of a dual quaternion relative navigation filter applied to asteroid circumnavigation. The simulated target asteroid is Kleopatra, a dog-bone-shaped asteroid featuring a low-potential highly perturbed gravity...

Accurate knowledge of satellite orbit errors is essential for many types of analyses. Unfortunately, for two-line elements (TLEs) this is not available. This paper presents a weighted differencing method using robust least-squares regression for estimating many important error characteristics. The method is applied to both classic and enhanced TLEs...

This book covers the parameterization of entry capsules, including Apollo capsules and planetary probes, and winged entry vehicles such as the Space Shuttle and lifting bodies. The aerodynamic modelling is based on a variety of panel methods that take shadowing into account, and it has been validated with flight and wind tunnel data of Apollo and t...

In this paper, an adaptive, disturbance-based sliding-mode controller for hypersonic-entry vehicles is proposed. The scheme is based on high-order sliding-mode theory, and is coupled to an extended sliding-mode observer, able to reconstruct online the disturbances. The result is a numerically stable control scheme, able to adapt online to reduce th...

Larger power requirements from modern spacecraft precipitate Brobdingnagian solar arrays to fulfil budgetary needs. Although the solar arrays may have a relatively small influence on the total mass of the spacecraft system, large arrays with long flexible panels do affect the dynamics through the moment of inertia. Therefore, this paper examines th...

D.I.Gransden@tudelft.nl Sensor structural feedback and propellant sloshing have an adverse affect on the stability of conventional launch vehicles. Additionally, vehicle flight loads increase due to structural vibrations. However, in the conceptual design phase of a conventional launch vehicle, it is computationally expensive and undesirable to mod...

Taylor-series integration is a numerical integration technique that computes the Taylor series of state variables using recurrence relations and uses this series to propagate the state in time. A Taylor-series integration reentry integrator is developed and compared with the fifth-order Runge–Kutta–Fehlberg integrator to determine whether Taylor-se...

Recent years have seen a steep increase in research being performed toward active space-debris removal. In particular, the ESA has proposed a mission in which a robotic chaser satellite would use a tether to interface with the derelict Envisat and deorbit it. This study focuses on the preliminary design of a guidance and control system to achieve t...

For future landings on any celestial body, increasing the lander autonomy as well as decreasing risk are primary objectives. Both risk reduction and an increase in autonomy can be achieved by including hazard detection and avoidance in the guidance, navigation, and control loop. One of the main challenges in hazard detection and avoidance is the re...