SPACE seminar: Valentina Nasti; Matteo Palescandolo

Tuesday 19 May 2026, 12:00 → 13:00 Europe/Rome

Speaker 1: Valentina Nasti (SSM)

Title 1: Autonomous Vision-Based Navigation for Spacecraft Proximity Operations Around Small Bodies: From Synthetic Rendering to Visual Odometry

Abstract 1: Small body missions — targeting asteroids, comets, and other irregular objects — represent one of the most challenging scenarios for autonomous spacecraft navigation. Unlike planetary environments, these targets lack a priori shape models, exhibit weak and irregular gravity fields, and offer no external navigation aids. Vision-based navigation using onboard cameras thus becomes the primary source of relative state information, but its reliability is highly dependent on illumination conditions, surface texture, and viewing geometry.  This talk presents the research framework developed within the SPACE PhD program and UNINA Aerospace Team, structured around two interconnected pillars. The first is a high-fidelity synthetic image generation environment built on Blender. It can make physically accurate images of irregular bodies with realistic lighting, calibrated sensor models, and accurate orbital dynamics. The second pillar is a monocular Visual Odometry pipeline for relative pose estimation during proximity operations. Preliminary results on a simulated asteroid scenario demonstrate the pipeline's trajectory reconstruction capability and highlight the critical coupling between rendering fidelity and navigation performance.

References 1: 

1. M. Pugliatti, C. Buonagura, and F. Topputo, "CORTO: The Celestial Object Rendering TOol at DART Lab," Sensors, vol. 23, no. 23, p. 9595, 2023. DOI: 10.3390/s23239595
2. F. Piccolo, M. Pugliatti, J. W. McMahon, and F. Topputo, "Autonomous Vision-Based Navigation at Small Bodies Combining Centroiding and Visual Odometry," Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, 2025. DOI: 10.2514/1.A36370
3. M. Dor, T. Driver, K. Getzandanner, and P. Tsiotras, "AstroSLAM: Autonomous Monocular Navigation in the Vicinity of a Celestial Small Body — Theory and Experiments," International Journal of Robotics Research, vol. 43, no. 11, pp. 1770–1808, 2024. DOI: 10.1177/02783649241234367

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Speaker 2: Matteo Palescandolo (UNINA)

Title 2: An Introduction to Space Situational Awareness and Passive RF Satellite Tracking

Abstract 2: Space Situational Awareness is becoming increasingly important as Earth orbit grows more congested, dynamic, and strategically relevant. This talk will provide a broad overview of what SSA is, why it matters, and which capabilities are needed to detect, track, catalogue, and predict the motion of space objects. It will also discuss some of the main trends currently shaping the field, including the growing role of Space Traffic Management, the need for more resilient and persistent tracking architectures, the increasing importance of maneuver detection, and the integration of complementary sensing technologies. Within this broader context, the talk will then focus on my research on passive radio-frequency sensing for satellite tracking. In particular, I will introduce the idea of exploiting RF signals already emitted by active spacecraft and using multiple receiving satellites to estimate the position and velocity of the emitter through multilateration techniques based on Time Difference of Arrival and Frequency Difference of Arrival measurements. The presentation will highlight the main opportunities and challenges of this approach, including signal detectability, receiver geometry, measurement availability, and its potential contribution to GNSS-resilient Space Situational Awareness and Space Traffic Management architectures.

References 2:

1. M. Palescandolo, G. Isoletta, R. Opromolla, G. Fasano, D. Pascale, P. Martufi, C. Ciancarelli, and A. Intelisano, “Space-based multilateration for GNSS-resilient space traffic management,” presented at the 5th International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Conference on Space Situational Awareness (ICSSA), Tres Cantos, Madrid, Spain, Apr. 7–9, 2026, paper IAA-ICSSA-26-00-54.
2. M. Palescandolo, R. Opromolla, G. Fasano, D. Pascale, P. Martufi, and C. Ciancarelli, “Multi-satellite based passive localization of spaceborne cooperative RF emitters: Simulation framework and impact of constellation geometry,” in AIAA SCITECH 2026 Forum, Orlando, FL, USA, Jan. 12–16, 2026, AIAA Paper 2026-0827, doi: 10.2514/6.2026-0827.
3. ESA Space Debris Office, “ESA’s Annual Space Environment Report,” European Space Agency, ESA/ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany, Rep. GEN-DB-LOG-00288-OPS-SD, Issue/Revision 9.1, Oct. 21, 2025.

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