ONGOING ACTIVITIES

The Surveillance and ProxImity operations REsearch (SPIRE) Lab of Politecnico di Milano is committed to contributing to global initiatives in space traffic monitoring and driving the development of advanced technologies for in-orbit satellite servicing.

Research activities are divided in two main areas:

Space Situational Awareness (SSA)/Space Traffic Monitoring

• Space objects cataloguing
• Space Surveillance and Tracking services: Re-entry, Fragmentation, Conjunction analysis and Collision avoidance
• Military SSA: manoeuvre detection, anomaly detection, threat assessment, threat mitigation, satellite protection

Proximity operations and servicing in space

• Image processing and synthetic image generation
• Autonomous guidance and navigation strategies for proximity operations
• Space manipulators

FUTURE PLANS

Future initiatives will focus on enhancing the group's expertise in space surveillance andensuring the safe operation of satellites engaged in proximity manoeuvres.

Key developments will target:

• advancing the precision of predictive techniques for nonlinear dynamic scenarios;
• formulating effective operational manoeuvre strategies to manage the increasingly congested space environment;
• adapting and extending circumterrestrial methodologies to support space traffic monitoring within the cislunar domain;
• ensuring safe navigation around unknown objects in space;
• creating relative navigation strategies that integrate and optimize the use of diverse sensor systems;
• designing robust methods and pipelines to enable teleoperation of robotic arms in orbit.

ONGOING PROJECTS

In the years, the SPIRE Lab has secured several research projects, and is currently working on:

• AstrAware, EIC, 2025-2028
• EMISSARY, EDF, 2024-2028
• POLIMI - Sviluppo Algoritmi per ISOC 4.0, Leonardo S.p.a., 2025-2027
• Detriti spaziali e sostenibilità delle attività spaziali a lungo-termine, in collaboration with COMPASS Lab, ASI-INAF, 2023-2026
• GEORyder, EU, 2024-2026
• CARL, ESA, 2025-2026
• Enhanced SST services through data sharing and networking (BIRALES TOP 5), INAF, 2025-2026
• ASSAI, EDA, 2023-2026
• Activa
• LZD
• Space Cyber Range, for Spaceit in collaboration with DART Lab, 2025-2026
• ESA On-Orbit Breakup Forensics, ESA, 2024-2025, collaboration with COMPASS Lab
• Sviluppi software a supporto di CSSA, Leonardo s.p.a., 2024-2025
• ESA LUMOS mission, collaboration with DART Lab within a European Consortium, 2025-2026
• ORBITHOOD, ESA, 2024-2025, collaboration with COMPASS Lab
• Attività tecnico-scientifiche di supporto a C-SSA/ISOC e simulazione di architetture di sensori per SST, ASI, 2023-2026, ISTAR, collaboration with COMPASS Lab
• Space It Up!, in collaboration with DARD Lab
• Next Generation – Croce del Nord (NG-CROCE) per Ministero dell’Università - Unione Europea, 2023-2026
• LUMIO – Lunar Environment and Engineering Working Group, ESA, 2023-2025
• Servizi inerenti alla realizzazione di un’infrastruttura HW e SW presso il
• CGS/Matera, ASI-IHS, 2023-2024, ASI, 700 k€, collaboration with
• COMPASS LabInnovative and iNteroperable Technologies for spacE
• Global Recognition and Alert (INTEGRAL), EU EDIDP, 2021-2024
• Aggiornamento del software di determinazione orbitale a supporto di ISOC 3.0 per Leonardo S.p.A, 2023
• Supporto esterno per il processamento dati, analisi delle campagne di calibrazione e attività operazionali, INAF, 2023
• CATTool: Development of conjunction analysis and collision probability services, Vitrociset S.p.a., 2022

PAST PROJECTS

Past projects in which SPIRE Lab participated, are:

• Sviluppo Algoritmi per C2-SSA (2025), for Leonardo s.p.a.
• LEO2VLEO, EDA, 2024-2025
• Analisi e sviluppo software a supporto di AstroTwin, Nurjana Technologies, 2024-2025
• EDIDP 2020 programme – Innovative and iNteroperable Technologies for spacE Global Recognition and Alert (INTEGRAL) project (2021-2024)
• ASTRA, Aeronautica Militare, 2024
• ELECTROCAM, ESA, 2021-2023
• Software update for the new configuration of BIRALES - Study and development of algorithms for the SST surveillance radar using adaptive beamforming per INAF (2021)
• Improvement of the BIRALES performance: correlator, TDM generator and IOD algorithm per INAF (2021)
• Development of reentry and sensor tasking services per Vitrociset S.p.a. (2020)
• Support to ISOC processing software: correlation service per Vitrociset S.p.a. (2020)
• Support to ISOC processing software: orbit determination service per Vitrociset S.p.a. (2020)
• Detriti Spaziali – Supporto alle attività IADC e SST 2019–2021

JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS 2024-2025

In the years 2024-2025 the SPIRE group produced 22 journal publications.