Research area · Astro
Orbital mechanics, trajectory design, constellation geometry, and dynamical environments from Earth orbit to cislunar space and small bodies.
CIRO develops trajectory-design methods for high-fidelity orbital transfers, multi-body flight, and interplanetary missions with flybys and deep-space maneuvers.
The work combines physical dynamics, mission constraints, and numerical optimization to obtain efficient trajectories for realistic mission environments, from Earth orbit and cislunar space to planetary destinations.
Lattice Flower Constellations use repeating geometric patterns to distribute sensors and observing opportunities efficiently. CIRO optimizes these architectures for full-sky and cislunar surveillance.
The design process balances constellation geometry, coverage, revisit behavior, sensor constraints, and mission cost across large and dynamically complex regions.
CIRO studies the dynamical structure of motion around irregular small bodies and designs frozen-orbit and out-of-nadir observation strategies for global surface mapping.
This work characterizes weak and nonuniform gravity fields, illumination geometry, orbital stability, and coverage performance. Guidance-intensive proximity operations are presented separately in the Optimal Guidance and Control area.
