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