| I presented at the 6th International Conference on Astrodynamics Tools and Techniques, otherwise known as ICATT. It was an intense couple of days. Firstly, we spent one day at EUMETSAT learning about a couple of tools developed at NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, all of which will come useful in the future, I'm sure. Then the remainder conference started, where more people were presenting how they go about solving the problems they face in Astrodynamics on a daily basis. |  My presentation was first in the afternoon session so I had the time to take this photo.  The first day of the conference was held at EUMETSAT, the rest at this conference centre in Darmstadt. |
I presented the work that I did as part of an ESA-funded contract a few month ago. My main task there was to analyse the ephemerides of man-made satellites (positions of objects in-orbit around the Earth), and filter out the erroneous ephemeris points (sometimes such incorrect data points are published). These filtered data are then used to predict when (and, consequently, where) an object will fall on to the Earth's surface. Currently we aren't very good at predicting this and our task in this contract was to improve the accuracy of these re-predictions. Right now, when a satellite re-enters, we cannot confidently tell you whether a few metre diameter ball of titanium will fall on your house from the sky with no prior warning. If we improve the prediction accuracy, we might be able to warn you in advance so that you can find some shelter. That's the gist of it, however no-one has ever been killed by a piece of space debris falling from the heavens.
Turns out that my work is crucial to improving the re-entry prediction accuracy, and it feels great to have made a difference. You can download both my paper and presentation, in their final versions, from here. It felt hugely rewarding to have done work that is appreciated by the community and that contributes to improving the safety of spaceflight.
Turns out that my work is crucial to improving the re-entry prediction accuracy, and it feels great to have made a difference. You can download both my paper and presentation, in their final versions, from here. It felt hugely rewarding to have done work that is appreciated by the community and that contributes to improving the safety of spaceflight.
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