Laura PirovanoUniversity of Auckland · Auckland Space Institute
Laura Pirovano
Doctor of Philosophy
About
26
Publications
3,708
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45
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
October 2017 - January 2020
Position
- Demonstrator for space dynamics and missions
Description
- Demonstator for Matlab Labs of the course space dynamics and missions.
Education
October 2017 - December 2019
May 2016 - September 2017
September 2013 - December 2015
Publications
Publications (26)
Space debris have become exceedingly dangerous over the years as the number of objects in orbit continues to increase. Active debris removal (ADR) missions have gained significant interest as effective means of mitigating the risk of collision between objects in space. This study focuses on developing a multi-ADR mission that utilizes controlled re...
This paper develops a high-order guidance scheme based on the expansion of the solution to a time-optimal low-thrust optimal control problem by utilising differential algebraic (DA) techniques. The result allows new optimal trajectories to be autonomously computed from the simple evaluation of polynomials, including updated time-of-flights. Further...
An initial orbit determination algorithm for surveillance Doppler-only radars with embedded quantification capabilities is presented. The method is based on a combination of Gauss' and Lambert's solvers formulated in the differential algebra framework, which provides the Taylor expansion of the state estimate with respect to the measurement uncerta...
Building and maintaining a catalog of resident space objects involves several tasks, ranging from observations to data analysis. Once acquired, the knowledge of a space object needs to be updated following a dedicated observing schedule. Dynamics mismodeling and unknown maneuvers can alter the catalog's accuracy, resulting in uncorrelated observati...
Space debris have been becoming exceedingly dangerous over the years as the number of objects in orbit continues to rise. Active debris removal (ADR) missions have garnered significant attention as an effective way to mitigate this collision risk. This research focuses on developing a multi-ADR mission that utilizes controlled reentry and deorbitin...
Building and maintaining knowledge of resident space objects involves several tasks, ranging from observations to data analysis. Once acquired, the knowledge of a space object needs to be updated following a dedicated observing schedule. However, dynamics mismodelling and unknown maneuvers can alter the catalog's accuracy, resulting in uncorrelated...
This paper presents the solution approach developed by the team "theAntipodes" for the 11th Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC11). The approach consists of four main blocks: 1) mothership chain generation, 2) rendezvous table generation, 3) the dispatcher, and 4) the refinement. Blocks 1 and 3 are purely combinatorial optimization pro...
This paper presents the solution approach developed by the team “theAntipodes” for the 11th Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC11). The approach consists of four main blocks: (1) mothership chain generation, (2) rendezvous table generation, (3) the dispatcher, and (4) the refinement. Blocks 1 and 3 are purely combinatorial optimization...
This note develops easily applicable techniques that improve the convergence and reduce the computational time of indirect low thrust trajectory optimization when solving fuel- and time-optimal problems. For solving fuel optimal (FO) problems, a positive scaling factor -- $\Gamma_{TR}$ -- is introduced based on the energy optimal (EO) solution to e...
A new Doppler radar initial orbit determination algorithm with embedded uncertainty quantification capabilities is presented. The method is based on a combination of Gauss' and Lambert's solvers. The whole process is carried out in the Differential Algebra framework, which provides the Taylor expansion of the state estimate with respect to the meas...
In the context of Space Surveillance and Tracking, one of the crucial phases of the cataloging process is the identification of newly detected objects and their initial orbit determination (IOD). We propose an analysis of the combined use of radar and optical instruments in a stare and chase strategy as follows. Through a large field of view starin...
The ever-increasing amount of uncontrolled space objects, known as space debris, poses a risk to space activities due to possible collisions with operational spacecraft. An accurate prediction of their orbit is needed to prevent damages to infrastructure in orbit and on the ground. In the frame of the Spanish Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) (...
Untracked space debris is the principal threat to operational satellites’ functioning whose services have become a fundamental part of our daily life. Though some specialised sensors can detect objects down to sub-cm sizes in geostationary Earth orbit, only objects larger than 30 cm are currently being catalogued. Thus, small debris are only seldom...
Recent anomalies and break-ups by satellites and rocket bodies have added more fragments to an already substantial population of debris in high-altitude Earth orbits. Many of these fragments are too faint to detect with small telescopes, instead requiring the superior collecting area of larger instruments.
Optical surveys of the geosynchronous (GS...
Recent anomalies and break-ups by satellites and rocket bodies have added more fragments to an already substantial population of debris in high-altitude Earth orbits. Many of these fragments are too faint to detect with small telescopes, instead requiring the superior collecting area of larger instruments. However, large telescopes typically have...
This paper presents a novel method to obtain the solution to the initial orbit determination problem for optical observations as a continuum of orbits—namely the orbit set—that fits the set of acquired observations within a prescribed accuracy. Differential algebra is exploited to analytically link the uncertainty in the observations to the state o...
When building a space catalogue, it is necessary to acquire multiple observations of the same object for the estimated state to be considered meaningful. A first concern is then to establish whether different sets of observations belong to the same object, which is the association problem. Due to illumination constraints and adopted observation str...
Untraced space debris is the principal threat to the functioning of operational satellites whose services have become a fundamental part of our daily life. Small debris between 1 and 10 cm are currently too small to be cataloged and are only detectable for a limited amount of time. Indeed, when performing survey campaigns, the selected schedule and...
Untraced space debris are the principal threat to the functioning of operational satellites whose services have be- come a fundamental part of our daily life. Small debris between 1 and 10 cm are currently too small to be cataloged and are only detectable for a limited amount of time when surveying the sky. The very-short arc nature of the observat...
The paper focuses on a novel method for data association with Differential Algebra. The sensitivity of the DA-IOD algorithm developed to different observing strategies is analysed, highlighting the necessity for a different data treatment for specific cases. Results for the data association are shown both for real observations one day apart and for...
The uncertainty region associated with short arcs is typically large, making the initialization of orbit estimators a challenging task. In this work we propose a method to reduce the size of the uncertainty region using automatic domain pruning. The initial orbit and its confidence region are obtained by using a differential algebra-based initial o...
The object of this paper is the initial orbit determination of an orbit set compatible with an observational arc by means of differential algebra. The initial estimate is retrieved as a truncated power series expanded with respect to the uncertainties in the measurements. The analysis of the region is performed with the automatic domain splitting,...
Gossamer-1 is the first project of the three-step Gossamer roadmap, the purpose of which is to develop, prove and demonstrate that solar-sail technology is a safe and reliable propulsion technique for long-lasting and high-energy missions. This paper firstly presents the structural analysis performed on the sail to understand its elastic behavior....
Projects
Projects (2)
Devise a robust and efficient algorithm to autonomously compute collision avoidance trajectory. The method can deal with short and long-term encounters and on arbitrary orbital regimes.
An international effort is currently being devoted to improving the performance of optical and radar sensors for space debris monitoring. Consequently, the coming years are expected to bring along a significant increase of the number of observed objects and, thus, the need for an efficient classification of the sensors data. Within this framework, this project, funded by the USA Air Force Research Laboratory, investigates the problem of the efficient correlation of two observations of resident space objects that are not yet associated to known objects.
