AstroNet - The Astrodynamics Network
Space missions are becoming increasingly more complex. They are being required to fulfil many different types of function, including telecommunications, Earth observation for environmental and disaster monitoring, space telescopes and other scientific instruments, and lunar and interplanetary exploration. To achieve their aims these missions require new and unusual kinds of trajectories and faster and more precise attitude control. Moreover, to spread the potential benefits of improved telecommunications and Earth observation as widely as possible, and to realise the full potential of space exploration and science, it is necessary to cut the cost of these missions by orders of magnitude.
Mathematics, in the form of dynamical systems, nonlinear optimisation and control theory, has a major role to play in the design of the low-cost complex missions of the future. This is dramatically illustrated by the recent Genesis Discovery mission, a spacecraft that followed a Lissajous (invariant torus) orbit near the Sun-Earth libration point L1 collecting solar wind particles to return to the Earth. The transfer to the Lissajous orbit and return to Earth was designed using the delicate heteroclinic dynamics of the restricted (Sun-Earth-spacecraft) 3-body system. This use of the natural dynamics of the 3-body problem substantially reduced the fuel needed, and hence the overall mission cost, compared with the traditional 'patched conics' approach which glues together Keplerian orbits of 2-body systems, but which is far from the true dynamics of the problem. The result has been a major paradigm shift in space mission design.
The Astrodynamics Network brings together many of the world's leading mathematical scientists working on the development of new methods for spacecraft mission design, along with engineers working in the space industry in government agencies (ESA, NASA), and has strong links to some of Europe's leading companies in the field (ASRO, Alcatel-Alenia Space, EADS Astrium, Deimos Space, GMV, SciSys Ltd, SSTL) . By exchanging knowledge and ideas and working together on joint projects, it is contributing towards the development of a vibrant multidisciplinary (mathematics, astronomy, engineering) and multisectorial (academic, industry, government agencies) community focusing on the development of new concepts and techniques for future space mission design.