{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/115415"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/115415","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Autonomous guidance and decision-making for planetary aerobraking","abstract":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","abstract_html":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Falcone, Giusy"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Aerospace Engineering","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Putnam, Zachary","Bretl, Timothy","Langbort, Cedric","Ornik, Melkior","Sirignano, Justin"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-05","date_published":"2022-05","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:54Z","subjects":["aerobraking","autonomous aerobraking","entry guidance","decision-making","Mars Odyssey","Mars exploration","insertion capabilities"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright© 2022 Giusy Falcone and Zachary R. Putnam"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115415","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Putnam, Zachary","Bretl, Timothy","Langbort, Cedric","Ornik, Melkior","Sirignano, Justin"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Falcone, Giusy"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-05","2022-04-22"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Aerospace Engineering"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["aerobraking","autonomous aerobraking","entry guidance","decision-making","Mars Odyssey","Mars exploration","insertion capabilities"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright© 2022 Giusy Falcone and Zachary R. Putnam"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115415"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","The student, Giusy Falcone, accepted the attached license on 2022-04-20 at 17:33.","The student, Giusy Falcone, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2022-04-22 at 00:14.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2022-04-22 at 15:05.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17866 on 2022-11-11 at 13:42:38","Aerobraking is a propellant-saving option for orbit insertion at planetary destinations with atmospheres relative to fully-propulsive direct orbit insertion. An aerobraking campaign consists of a propulsive insertion into a high-energy orbit, followed by many passes through the upper atmosphere, where drag is used to reduce orbital energy until the desired orbit is reached. Relative to a fully propulsive insertion maneuver, aerobraking enables a drastic reduction in the required propellant. However, aerobraking is operationally intensive, requiring constant supervision by a ground team for 2-11 months and intensive use of the already oversubscribed Deep Space Network. While a 6-month aerobraking campaign was acceptable 20 years ago, the fast pace requested by the new space market, more cost-constrained missions, and newer, low-cost smallsat concepts may benefit from fast and low-cost insertion capabilities. This dissertation explores the effect of autonomous planning capability and drag passage guidance in aerobraking. In this context, an autonomous planning capability in aerobraking would abate the operational costs and free the mission from human ground cost, inefficiency, and error. Furthermore, the long aerobraking mission time might be considered the main disadvantage for orbit insertion, especially for low-cost satellites, which often have a short lifetime. Guidance algorithms and autonomous control capability in the drag passage are developed to shorten the aerobraking mission, improving the aerobraking performance at the single passage level. While the autonomous aerobraking planning and the autonomous guidance and control in drag passages represent two different and independent forms of system-level autonomy, their synergetic use enables a low-cost, fast and safe orbit insertion capability and a trusted autonomous system."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Autonomous guidance and decision-making for planetary aerobraking"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Putnam, Zachary","Bretl, Timothy","Langbort, Cedric","Ornik, Melkior","Sirignano, Justin"],"dc:creator":["Falcone, Giusy"],"dc:date":["2022-05","2022-04-22"],"dc:description":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","The student, Giusy Falcone, accepted the attached license on 2022-04-20 at 17:33.","The student, Giusy Falcone, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2022-04-22 at 00:14.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2022-04-22 at 15:05.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17866 on 2022-11-11 at 13:42:38","Aerobraking is a propellant-saving option for orbit insertion at planetary destinations with atmospheres relative to fully-propulsive direct orbit insertion. An aerobraking campaign consists of a propulsive insertion into a high-energy orbit, followed by many passes through the upper atmosphere, where drag is used to reduce orbital energy until the desired orbit is reached. Relative to a fully propulsive insertion maneuver, aerobraking enables a drastic reduction in the required propellant. However, aerobraking is operationally intensive, requiring constant supervision by a ground team for 2-11 months and intensive use of the already oversubscribed Deep Space Network. While a 6-month aerobraking campaign was acceptable 20 years ago, the fast pace requested by the new space market, more cost-constrained missions, and newer, low-cost smallsat concepts may benefit from fast and low-cost insertion capabilities. This dissertation explores the effect of autonomous planning capability and drag passage guidance in aerobraking. In this context, an autonomous planning capability in aerobraking would abate the operational costs and free the mission from human ground cost, inefficiency, and error. Furthermore, the long aerobraking mission time might be considered the main disadvantage for orbit insertion, especially for low-cost satellites, which often have a short lifetime. Guidance algorithms and autonomous control capability in the drag passage are developed to shorten the aerobraking mission, improving the aerobraking performance at the single passage level. While the autonomous aerobraking planning and the autonomous guidance and control in drag passages represent two different and independent forms of system-level autonomy, their synergetic use enables a low-cost, fast and safe orbit insertion capability and a trusted autonomous system."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115415"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright© 2022 Giusy Falcone and Zachary R. Putnam"],"dc:subject":["aerobraking","autonomous aerobraking","entry guidance","decision-making","Mars Odyssey","Mars exploration","insertion capabilities"],"dc:title":["Autonomous guidance and decision-making for planetary aerobraking"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Aerospace Engineering"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:54Z"}