Guillermo J. Dominguez Calabuig

German Aerospace Center (DLR) | DLR · Space Launcher System Analysis

This whitepaper is intended to give an overview of the results from the 2nd workshop on Life Cycle Assessment of Space Transportation Systems. During a three-day workshop from 4th – 6th July 2023 a group of 30 experts from academia, agencies and industry came together at the Space Center Baden Württemberg to access the status of research on “Life C...

D-type asteroids are among the most primitive small bodies of the solar system. Believed to be formed in the outer solar system, a minor fraction of these faint objects can be found in the near-Earth region. Some were suspected to be extinct comets disguised as asteroids. If D-type near-Earth asteroids could represent extinct comets, they would off...

With a continuously growing number of satellites in orbit, it becomes increasingly important to assess their impacts on the Earth’s environment in a standardised manner. While interest in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for space missions has gained in strength in the past few years - particularly in Europe - no consensus has yet been reached on a sing...

As actors in the space sector are proposing ever more ambitious plans for the future, it is important to evaluate their consequences on the Earth's environment, which are yet poorly known. To address this gap, this study presents a streamlined Life Cycle Assessment of future space activities over the period from 2022 to 2050 based on plans that wou...

Reusability for space transportation vehicles offers the potential to lower launch costs, thus enabling low-cost and frequent access to space. Nevertheless, estimating the costs of such an RLV, although being the main driver for the economic success of such a vehicle, is a highly uncertain and unreliable task. For this paper, the well-known cost es...

Reusable launch vehicles (RLV) are slowly emerging as a solution to reduce space access costs, bringing potential benefits from novel breakthrough space application. Whilst space presents an ideal platform for addressing global issues, it raises an "adaptation-mitigation dilemma". Launch vehicles are the only anthropogenic object emitting directly...

Reusable launch systems have revolutionized the space transportation industry during the last decade. The established success of Falcon 9 (SpaceX) played a pivotal role for many private companies and space agencies, pushing them to invest consistent resources in reusable launch vehicles (RLV) oriented on re-covery for both main and upper stages. In...

Within the scope of the European Green Deal, the aerospace industry is currently staking on sustainability. To fulfil the objectives and in order to ensure Europe's independent and cost-effective space access capabilities, the ASCenSIon (Advancing Space Access Capabilities - Reusability and Multiple Satellite Injection) project, funded by H2020, i...

Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs) are not only key for an economically and ecologically sustainable space access but also represent a paramount innovation towards the increasing demand for smaller satellites and mega-constellations. In order to ensure Europe's independent space access capabilities, ASCenSIon (Advancing Space Access Capabilities - Reu...

Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs) are not only key for an economically and ecologically sustainable space access but also represent a paramount innovation towards the increasing demand for smaller satellites and mega- constellations. In order to ensure Europe's independent space access capabilities, ASCenSIon (Advancing Space Access Capabilities - Re...

Re-usability concept for Launch Vehicles is under investigation at different companies around the different Space Agencies since a re-usable Space Transportation Vehicle is the solution to provide interesting cost savings to achieve low-cost and reliable access to space. The term re-usable space transportation refers to several levels of reuse rang...

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...

White Paper for the Planetary Science Decadal Survey, 2023 -2032

To obtain new insights into D-type asteroids and their possible relationship with extinct comets we introduce the mission concept CARINA (Comet Asteroid Relation INvestigation and Analysis). A description of the scientific objectives, the proposed payload, as well as the mission profile will be presented.

The launch vehicle sector is being revolutionized by the successes of SpaceX and Blue origin, partly because of their innovative commercialization and operations. This is increasing the interest in reusability as a possible way of reducing launch costs, with a wide range of proposed launch vehicle concepts. Some of these proposals are driven by pos...

The aim of this assignment is to develop and extend a Launcher 6DOF simulator by including different environmental models and settings. In addition, it also explores Guidance Navigation and Control techniques for small launchers. The exo-atmospheric closed loop guidance, in combination with the reference pitch program trajectory tracking for the fi...