Areas of expertise
- Space Systems
Background
Dr Joan-Pau Sanchez studied physics at the Universitat de Barcelona, and an MSc in Mission Analysis and Design at the University of Glasgow. He was awarded his PhD also from University of Glasgow in 2009 after completing a comprehensive analysis of different deflection alternatives against Earth-threatening asteroids and comets. He then briefly worked as space mission analysis at GMV Aerospace and Defence, before returning to academia. He joined the University of Strathclyde as postdoctoral research fellow, leading the Visionary Space Systems theme within the ERC project VISIONSPACE. In 2012, he was granted an individual Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship to pursue his research on asteroid retrieval missions at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. He joined Cranfield University on February 2015.
Current activities
Challenges to space mission design are today as abundant as ever; spacecraft reach new unexplored regions of the Solar System, and promise to reach even further with the technologies that move up the TRL ladder; new insights into orbital dynamics are revealing new rich families of exploitable orbits, which may enable radically new mission applications and services; etc. All these advances, both technological and theoretical, entail new sets of problems to be dealt with by the fields of Astrodynamics, Space System Engineering, Planetary Science and Space Environment.
My research activities particularly focus on small body missions; from current exploration issues, such as how and where to land in asteroids and comets, to longer term problems such as how to deflect Earth threatening asteroid or to exploit asteroids and comets for in-situ resource utilization.
Clients
- European Space Agency
- European Commission
- UK Space Agency
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- Science and Technology Facilities Council
Publications
Articles In Journals
- Bellome A, Sanchez Cuartielles JP, Felicetti L & Kemble S. (2023). Multiobjective design of gravity-assist trajectories via graph transcription and dynamic programming. Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, 60(5)
- Bellome A, Sanchez JP, García Mateas JC, Felicetti L & Kemble S. (2023). Modified dynamic programming for asteroids belt exploration. Acta Astronautica, 215
- Lehtinen T, Granvik M, Bellome A & Sánchez J-P. (2021). Icarus: In-situ monitoring of the surface degradation on a near-sun asteroid. Acta Astronautica, 186(September)
- Sánchez J-P, Morante D, Hermosin P, Ranuschio D, Estalella A, .... (2021). ESA F-Class Comet Interceptor: trajectory design to intercept a yet-to-be-discovered comet. Acta Astronautica, 188(November)
- Machuca P & Sánchez J-P. (2021). CubeSat autonomous navigation and guidance for low-cost asteroid flyby missions. Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, 58(6)
Conference Papers
- Wu CX, Machuca P, Felicetti L & Sanchez J-P. (2022). Autonomous optical navigation for small spacecraft in cislunar space
- Afsa H, Bellome A, Sanchez Cuartielles JP & Kemble S. (2022). Automatic multi-gravity assist trajectory design with modified Tisserand Graphs exploration
- Sanchez J-P, Bellome A, Carrillo M & Del Ser J. (2022). Deterministic and stochastic exploration of long asteroid fly-by sequences exploiting tree-graph and optimal substructure properties
- Bellome A, Sanchez Cuartielles JP, Kemble S & Felicetti L. (2021). A multi-fidelity optimization process for complex multiple gravity assist trajectory design
- Di Fraia MZ, Feetham L, Felicetti L, Sanchez J-P & Chermak L. (2021). Perception fields: analysing distributions of optical features as a proximity navigation tool for autonomous probes around asteroids
- Bellome A, Carrillo M, Sanchez Cuartielles JP, Del Ser J, Kemble S, .... (2021). Efficiency of tree-search like heuristics to solve complex mixed-integer programming problems applied to the design of optimal space trajectories
- Bellome A, Sanchez J-P, Rico Álvarez JI, Afsa H, Kemble S, .... (2021). An automatic process for sample return missions based on dynamic programming optimization
- Sánchez J-P, Jones GH & Snodgrass C. (2020). Comet interceptor: an ESA mission to a dynamically new solar system object
- Bellome A, Cuartielles J-PS, Felicetti L & Kemble S. (2020). Modified tisserand map exploration for preliminary multiple gravity assist trajectory design
- Di Fraia MZ, Chermak L, Cuartielles J-P, Felicetti L & Scannapieco AF. (2020). NAV-Landmarks: deployable 3D infrastructures to enable CubeSats navigation near asteroids
- Machuca P, Ozaki N, Sánchez J-P, Felicetti L & Funase R. (2020). System requirements analysis for JAXA's contribution to Comet Interceptor mission: autonomous navigation, guidance and attitude control for a hyperbolic comet fly-by
- Sánchez JP, Ranuschio D, Estalella A, Morante D, Viera D, .... (2020). ESA F-class comet-I: Trajectory design to intercept a yet-to-be-discovered comet
- Machuca P & Sanchez Cuartielles JP. (2019). Autonomous navigation and guidance for CubeSats to flyby near-Earth asteroids
- Neves R & Sanchez J-P. (2018). Optimization of asteroid capture missions using Earth resonant encounters
- Sánchez Lara C & Sánchez Cuartielles JP. (2018). Near rectilinear orbits around the moon as operational orbit for the future deep space gateway
- Hobbs S, Sanchez JP, Convenevole C, Gibbings A, Germani C, .... (2018). G-class: A geosynchronous radar mission to study the diurnal water cycle
- Cano J, Cunill J, Diaz AJ, Golemis A, Gupta S, .... (2018). ARTEMIS: A complete mission architecture to bridge the gap between humanity and near-Earth asteroids
- Machuca P, Sánchez J-P, Masdemont JJ & Gomez G. (2018). Low-energy trajectory design and autonomous navigation to flyby near-Earth asteroids using CubeSats
- Neves R & Sanchez Cuartielles JP. (2018). Gauss’ variational equations for low-thrust optimal control problems in low-energy regimes
- Sanchez Cuartielles JP, Colombo C & Alessi EM. (2018). Analytical and semi-analytical approaches to the third-body perturbation in nearly co-orbital regimes
- Sanchez Cuartielles JP, Sitepu E, Le Blay C, Kersey G, Ogborne S, .... (2018). Towards drop your thesis 2018: 4.7 seconds of microgravity conditions to enable future CubeSat landings on asteroids
- Celik O, Sánchez J-P, Karatekin Ö & Ritter B. (2017). Analysis of natural landing trajectories for passive landers in binary asteroids: A case study for (65803) 1996GT didymos
- Neves R & Sánchez JP. (2017). Asteroid capture missions for unattainable targets using earth-resonant encounters
- Celik O & Sánchez J-P. (2017). Landing in binary asteroids: A global map of feasible descend opportunities for unpowered spacecraft
- Celik O, Karatekin O, Ritter B & Sanchez JP. (2017). Reliability Analysis of Ballistic Landing in Binary Asteroid 65803 (1996 GT) Didymos under Uncertainty and GNC Error Considerations
- Sánchez Cuartielles JP, Gibbings A, Snodgrass C, Green SF & Bowles NE. (2016). Asteroid belt multiple flyby options for M-Class Missions
- Sánchez Cuartielles JP, Colombo C & Alessi EM. (2015). Semi-analytical perturbative approaches to third body resonant trajectories
