ONGOING ACTIVITIES

COMPASS addresses the long-term sustainability of the space activities, from different -interconnected- perspectives including astrodynamics, trajectory design, mission analysis, guidance navigation and control and system design. Long-term sustainability as preservation and exploitation of extreme valuable environment; sustainability in the sense of circular space economy.

The major research areas are:

Space sustainability.

• Keywords: space debris long-term evolution modelling, space debris indicators, space capacity allocation, light pollution assessment, space debris population control, cislunar space situational awareness, and collision risk analyses.

Space traffic management.

• Keywords: collision avoidance manoeuvres, end-of-life disposal design, re-entry modelling and prediction, fragmentation characterisation and reconstruction, active debris removal, and on-orbit inspection and servicing.

Planetary protection and defence.

• Keywords: asteroid deflection missions and technologies, planetary protection analysis, missions to asteroids, astrodynamics.

Mission design.

• Current missions: E.Cube, SpEye, formation flying large aperture synthesis mission, REMEC, technology demo mission for deployable surface-based debris, LunPan.

Space services.

• Formation flying for distributed Earth observation, assessment of socio-economic impact of space missions, satellite constellations.

FUTURE PLANS

COMPASS will advance research in the characterisation of the outer space, by further developing methods and software to model the debris population and control the space capacity allocation for application of Science to Policy. It will bring the techniques already developed for the Space Traffic Management to their operational validation in space. To maximise the technology and economical return of space systems, COMPASS will study solutions to service operative spacecraft (maintenance/repair a/o life extension services) and to reduce the access-to-space cost by assembling large structures directly in space (recycling space assets). COMPASS will contribute to the development of several missions devoted to mature key technology and know-how for deepen our knowledge of the space environment and to exercise remediation actions. COMPASS is committed to foster the development of advanced space-based services, that either exploit the opportunities unlocked by complex forms of cooperation and interaction between artificial satellites or study advanced socio-economic philosophies and approaches to the space field.

ONGOING PROJECTS

In the years 2022-2024, the COMPASS group has secured or helped to secure 7.6 M€ within the research projects:

1. GREEN SPECIES, European Research Council, 2023-ongoing, 2 M€.
2. THEMIS2, ESA, 2024-ongoing, 500 k€.
3. ASI-IHS, 2023-2024, ASI, 2023-ongoing 540 k€, collaboration with SPIRE Lab
4. THEMIS1, ESA, 2021-2024 (ended), 320 k€.
5. E.Cube, ASI, 2024-ongoing, 339 k€.
6. TELCOLA, ESA, 2024-ongoing, 180 k€.
7. Reactive constellation, PNRR, 2024-ongoing, 50 k€.
8. ESA On-Orbit Breakup Forensics, ESA, 2024-ongoing, 162 k€ collaboration with SPIRE Lab
9. Attività tecnico-scientifiche di supporto a C-SSA/ISOC e simulazione di architetture di sensori per SST, ASI, 2023-2026, ISTAR, 650 k€, collaboration with SPIRE Lab.
10. Detriti spaziali e sostenibilità delle attività spaziali a lungo-termine, ASI, 2023-2026, 190 k€, collaboration with SPIRE Lab.
11. ELECTROCAM, ESA, 2021-2023 (ended), 100 k€, collaboration with SPIRE Lab
12. ORBITHOOD, ESA, 2024-ongoing, 125 k€, collaboration with SPIRE Lab
13. ACTIVA, ESA, 2024-ongoing, 85 k€, collaboration with SPIRE Lab
14. CRADLE, MSCA EU, 2021-2023 (ended), 230 k€.
15. Radiation Environment Monitor for Energetic Cosmic rays (REMEC), ESA, 2022 – 2024 (ended), 36 k€.
16. LunPan, ESA, 2024-ongoing, 15 k€.
17. COMPASS, European Research Council, 2016-2022 (ended), 1.5 M€.
18. SpEye, ASI, 2023-ongoing, 115 k€.
19. Deployable Surface-Based Debris Monitoring – DSBDM, ESA, 2022 (ended), 37.5 k€.
20. Endurance, Infinite Orbits, 2023-ongoing, 30 k€.
21. Tom&Jerry, Infinite Orbits, 2024-ongoing, 122.6 k€.
22. FTSLS - Future Tracking of Satellites & Launcher Stages, UK Space agency, 2021-2022 (ended), 25 k€.
23. Modelling of GenerGo engine and investigation of space mission applications, GenerGo, 2022-2023 (ended), 160 k€.
24. Robust trajectory design techniques accounting for generic evolving uncertainties, ESA, 2021-2023 (ended), 45 k€.
25. NAVISP-EL1-038: Application of Machine Learning Technology for GNSS IoT Data Fusion – CAMALIOT, ESA, 2021-2022 (ended), 126 k€.

Journal Publications 2022-2024

In the years 2022-2024 the COMPASS group produced 41 journal publications.