Natasha Bosanac News

Seminar: Advancing Spacecraft Trajectory Design, Analysis, and Prediction within Multi-Body Systems - Sept. 27

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 15:03:18 +0000

Seminar: Advancing Spacecraft Trajectory Design, Analysis, and Prediction within Multi-Body Systems - Sept. 27 Jeff Zehnder Tue, 09/17/2024 - 09:03

Natasha Bosanac
Assistant Professor, Smead Aerospace
Friday, Sept. 27 | 10:40 a.m. | AERO 114

Abstract: Our future in space involves miniaturized satellites for low-cost and rapid access to space, autonomously navigating spacecraft, on-orbit servicing for sustainability, in-space assembly of critical infrastructure, formations for multi-point measurements, and spacecraft visiting the farthest reaches of our solar system. Across this wide array of architectures, form factors, and destinations is a common thread: spacecraft operating within multi-body gravitational systems. These systems possess a chaotic solution space that has challenged several astrodynamics tasks, including 1) sufficiently understanding the broad array of possible motions for a spacecraft; 2) designing complex and constrained trajectories that exist across a diverse trade space; 3) generating digestible predictions of the possible future motions of an object; and 4) automating all these tasks to reduce operational costs and support autonomous decision-making. This talk will present selected recent contributions from my research group to address these challenges by developing new trajectory analysis, design, and prediction strategies for spacecraft operating in multi-body systems.

Bio: Natasha Bosanac is an Assistant Professor in the Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. She earned her S.B. in Aerospace Engineering from MIT in 2010. Then, she earned her M.S.A.A. and Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University in 2012 and 2016, respectively, with a focus on astrodynamics. Her research group works to advance trajectory design, analysis, and prediction strategies within multi-body systems through a combination of dynamical systems theory, machine learning, data mining, and path planning techniques.

Our future in space involves miniaturized satellites for low-cost and rapid access to space, autonomously navigating spacecraft, on-orbit servicing for sustainability, in-space assembly of critical infrastructure, formations for multi-point measurements, and spacecraft visiting the...

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CU Boulder aerospace professor earns Air Force grant to study spacecraft trajectories

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:24:14 +0000

CU Boulder aerospace professor earns Air Force grant to study spacecraft trajectories Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/23/2024 - 12:24

Jeff Zehnder

Dr. Natasha Bosanac has earned a 2024 Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Program award to advance the study of spacecraft trajectories in cislunar space – the region around the Earth and the Moon.

The $450,000, three-year AFOSR Young Investigator Program grant recognizes early career researchers conducting exceptional research in areas important to the Air Force.

Bosanac, an assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, leads a research group that focuses on developing new strategies for spacecraft trajectory design, analysis, and prediction in multi-body gravitational systems such as cislunar space.

“The astrodynamics community has been studying transport pathways that govern spacecraft motion within multi-body systems for decades,” Bosanac said. “However, our current approaches are challenged when we study spatial motion at a high energy, in more complex and accurate models, and with continuous thrust. These approaches also rely heavily on a human analyst for extensive analysis.”

Although NASA has been sending spacecraft to the Moon for decades, cislunar space is a chaotic and complex environment, and the recent expansion of government and commercial interest in missions is presenting new challenges.

Dr. Bosanac and her research group are addressing some of these obstacles using a data-driven technique called clustering to automatically discover groups of geometrically distinct spacecraft trajectories. These groups form a summary that reduces the burden on human operators.

The AFOSR award will enable Dr. Bosanac’s group to take a big leap forward in the development of this framework and automatically extract transport pathways that govern the motion of spacecraft within the Earth-Moon-Sun system.

“The array of possible motions between any point A and point B is cislunar space can be incredibly diverse,” she said. “One guiding motivation of our work is to contribute to the astrodynamics community’s quest for a more comprehensive understanding of motion in this area. This will help us with the spacecraft trajectory design and prediction tasks that will be critical to future cislunar operations while allowing humans to focus on more complex decision-making.”

The research could also be used to inform missions throughout the solar system.

In addition to this grant, Bosanac is part of a separate Air Force Research Laboratory multi-year program to advance orbital and artificial intelligence research. She also recently received the 2022 American Astronautical Society (AAS) Emerging Astrodynamicist Award and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Rocky Mountain Section 2023 Young Professional Engineer of the Year for making significant impacts in the field of space exploration and astrodynamics.

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Bosanac honored by Rocky Mountain AIAA

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Bosanac honored by Rocky Mountain AIAA Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/14/2023 - 00:00

Natasha Bosanac has been selected as the 2023 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Rocky Mountain Section Young Professional Engineer of the Year for her "significant impact in the field of space exploration and astrodynamics."

Bosanac is an assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Since joining the department in 2017, her research group has focused on developing new strategies for spacecraft trajectory design, analysis, and prediction in multi-body gravitational systems throughout the solar system.

In addition, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in orbital mechanics and dynamics.

She was also honored earlier this year with the American Astronautical Society's inaugural Emerging Astrodynamicist Award.

The Rocky Mountain AIAA has recognized numerous CU Boulder aerospace professors over the past decade. Previous recipients of the Educator of the Year Award include John Evans in 2021, Hanspeter Schaub in 2020, and Alireza Doostan in 2015. In 2020, Allie Anderson was also recognized as their Young Engineer of the Year.

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CU Boulder lands $5.5 million Air Force project to advance orbital and AI research

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 15:01:46 +0000

CU Boulder lands $5.5 million Air Force project to advance orbital and AI research Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/23/2022 - 09:01

Jeff Zehnder

The waning gibbous Moon above the Earth's horizon over the Atlantic Ocean.

A team of University of Colorado Boulder researchers is embarking on a major research project that will advance our understanding of orbital mechanics and monitoring, artificial intelligence, and hypersonics.

Led by Marcus Holzinger, an associate professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, the group has signed a $5.54 million, five-year cooperative agreement with the Air Force Research Laboratory to advance science and monitoring for next generation of space vehicles – particularly those that will travel beyond low Earth orbit to the Moon.

“These are really complex multi-domain applications in the defense world and we’re bringing together preeminent researchers to tackle these problems,” Holzinger said. “There’s a real opportunity to make important advances.”

The cooperative agreement represents a significant expansion of the relationship between Smead Aerospace and the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate. Holzinger said the project will include ongoing collaboration and could evolve and change as the research develops.

“The region in, around, and affected by the Earth-Moon-Sun system has drastically increased in commercial activity and Department of Defense mission relevance over the last few years,” Holzinger said. “There are more and more missions going to the Moon – not just our missions but India, China, and Europe as well. That means there needs to be some sensible tracking and detection of what’s going on out there and this project addresses that crucial need directly.”

Holzinger said this area, called space domain awareness, is important for national defense and to ensure spaceflight safety and responsible behavior. Currently, the Air Force maintains tracking networks to actively catalog space vehicles to avoid collisions. However, these systems only work for spacecraft orbiting the Earth, not the Moon, and growing traffic in orbit around Earth has made collision avoidance increasingly complicated.

NASA Orbital Debris Program illustration of satellites and space debris in low Earth orbit.

To address this, the team will work to develop a framework for spacecraft to make autonomous maneuvering decisions without human input by using artificial intelligence both for collision avoidance and to execute complex tasks, said Morteza Lahijanian, an assistant professor in Smead Aerospace and a member of the project team.

“This research will teach us how to go about designing safe autonomy for complex systems, especially in a setting where multiple space vehicles need to cooperate,” said Lahijanian. “This research can lead to designing fully autonomous spacecraft that we can trust, and would eliminate the role of humans who are typically the source of errors in the design or execution of missions.”

The work also aims to better understand the unique orbital dynamics surrounding the Moon to help future researchers and commercial projects, said Holzinger.

“We’re really interested in what sorts of repeating natural orbits are best for various applications and what are the best ways to get to and from those orbits,” Holzinger said. “We want to develop design tools so mission engineers can more easily answer these questions. Right now there are not enough experts that can do that work to meet the need.”

A third goal for the cooperative agreement aims to advance the science of hypersonic vehicles. Hypersonics is an active area of research around the world for national defense purposes.

During hypersonic flight, a vehicle and the gasses surrounding it can reach thousands of degrees, triggering chemical reactions. The team hopes to develop and validate models that will ensure hypersonic vehicle signatures, heat flux, and materials response can be predicted with minimal uncertainty.

In addition to Holzinger and Lahijanian, additional CU Boulder faculty partners include professors Natasha Bosanac, Tim Minton, Hanspeter Schaub, and Dan Scheeres.

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Seminar: Advancing Trajectory and Maneuver Design Strategies within Multi-Body Systems - Sept. 8

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Seminar: Advancing Trajectory and Maneuver Design Strategies within Multi-Body Systems - Sept. 8 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/30/2021 - 00:00

Natasha Bosanac
Assistant Professor, Smead Aerospace
Wednesday, Sept. 8 | 12:00 P.M. | Zoom

Abstract: Spacecraft technology is undergoing a significant advance that will expand humanity’s presence in space. Our future involves miniaturized satellites for low-cost and rapid access to space, on-orbit servicing to increase the lifetimes of spacecraft, in-space assembly of critical infrastructure, formations for multi-point measurements, and spacecraft visiting the farthest reaches of our solar system.

Across these architectures, form factors, and destinations is a common thread: spacecraft operating in complex, multi-body systems under the influence of multiple gravitational bodies. In these regimes, trajectory and maneuver design strategies currently rely heavily on a human expert who can perform complex analyses, identify patterns, make decisions and adapt as needed.

However, advancements in trajectory and maneuver planning that move away from this paradigm can enhance missions by reducing operational cost and complexity or enable new missions by, for example, supporting rapid response to uncertain environments without reliance on a ground-based team. Thus, trajectory and maneuver design emerges as a critical enabling and enhancing technology.

In this talk, I will present recent contributions from our research group that focus on using techniques from reinforcement learning, unsupervised learning and supervised learning to reduce the burden and reliance on a human-in-the-loop during keys steps in trajectory and maneuver design within multi-body systems. I will also highlight our recent contributions that focus on using trajectory design to enable new types of missions.

Bio: Natasha Bosanac is an Assistant Professor in the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research within the Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences department at the University of Colorado Boulder. She specializes in applications of dynamical systems theory to astrodynamics in multi-body systems. Her research group is currently working on advancing trajectory and maneuver design strategies through a combination of dynamical systems theory, machine learning and path planning techniques.

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Research, Career Opportunities Highlighted for Women in Aerospace

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 19:23:48 +0000

Research, Career Opportunities Highlighted for Women in Aerospace Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/07/2017 - 13:23

The 2017 CU Boulder-MIT-Stanford Women in Aerospace Symposium was hosted by the Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder on May 31 and June 1.

Sixteen outstanding women doctoral and post-doctoral researchers in aerospace engineering disciplines participated, representing a variety of academic institutions across the country. Several male and female faculty from aerospace departments at CU, MIT and Stanford - in various stages of their careers - also attended to share their diverse array of perspectives and experiences.

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