Dr. Francesco Topputo specializes in spacecraft trajectory optimization and space mission design and is an Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano (Milan, Italy) and a Visiting Professor at TU Delft (Delft, Netherlands). Francesco has been at Politecnico di Milano for over 17 years, starting out as a PhD student, then a postdoctoral fellow, then assistant professor, and now associate professor. His PhD thesis was titled: Low-thrust non-keplerian orbits: analysis, design, and control, where his studies focused on analysis and design of highly non-linear orbits arising from n-body dynamics. The Milani CubeSat, which is one of two 6U CubeSats that will be riding along Hera. Hera is part of the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA), which is a joint mission with NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission that will be impacting a binary asteroid system called Didymos to test this method of asteroid redirection. Link to video on Didymos binary asteroid system simulation with Hera: https://youtu.be/QDZnzoaRA64 I met Francesco back in summer of 2019 when I was doing an internship at GOMSpace Luxembourg. GOMSpace is a company that is headquartered in Aalborg, Denmark and they have offices in Sweden and Luxembourg. We were working on the Miniaturized Asteroid Remote Geophysical Observer (abbreviated M-ARGO), which is a mission for a 12U CubeSat to use a low-thrust engine to reach and investigate an asteroid. Francesco led the effort of designing trajectories to thousands of asteroids so we could find a few feasible candidates for targets of this mission. We discuss his work in this episode. The LUMIO CubeSat (Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observer) will be in an Earth-Moon L2 halo orbit to observe, quantify, and characterize the meteoroid impacts by detecting their flashes on the lunar far side. We discuss the orbit trades and transfer from low lunar orbit (LLO) to L2 halo orbit, and some discussion on stable and unstable manifolds.
Dr. Francesco Topputo specializes in spacecraft trajectory optimization and space mission design and is an Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano (Milan, Italy) and a Visiting Professor at TU Delft (Delft, Netherlands).
Francesco has been at Politecnico di Milano for over 17 years, starting out as a PhD student, then a postdoctoral fellow, then assistant professor, and now associate professor. His PhD thesis was titled: Low-thrust non-keplerian orbits: analysis, design, and control, where his studies focused on analysis and design of highly non-linear orbits arising from n-body dynamics.
The Milani CubeSat, which is one of two 6U CubeSats that will be riding along Hera. Hera is part of the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA), which is a joint mission with NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission that will be impacting a binary asteroid system called Didymos to test this method of asteroid redirection.
Link to video on Didymos binary asteroid system simulation with Hera:
I met Francesco back in summer of 2019 when I was doing an internship at GOMSpace Luxembourg. GOMSpace is a company that is headquartered in Aalborg, Denmark and they have offices in Sweden and Luxembourg. We were working on the Miniaturized Asteroid Remote Geophysical Observer (abbreviated M-ARGO), which is a mission for a 12U CubeSat to use a low-thrust engine to reach and investigate an asteroid. Francesco led the effort of designing trajectories to thousands of asteroids so we could find a few feasible candidates for targets of this mission. We discuss his work in this episode.
The LUMIO CubeSat (Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observer) will be in an Earth-Moon L2 halo orbit to observe, quantify, and characterize the meteoroid impacts by detecting their flashes on the lunar far side. We discuss the orbit trades and transfer from low lunar orbit (LLO) to L2 halo orbit, and some discussion on stable and unstable manifolds.