Jared Blanchard, a PhD candidate in the SESS lab, was awarded an NSTGRO fellowship to support his research in dynamical systems theory applied to orbital dynamics. The award can be renewed for up to four years and includes an annual "visiting technologist experience" at a NASA center. His proposal focused on using invariant funnels to target resonant landing trajectories in the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP).
An invariant funnel shown converging to a landing site at the north pole of Europa. Initial conditions at the landing site are integrated backward backward in time tracing out a funnel structure that expands farther away from Europa. Mission designers can target the much larger mouth of the funnel and allow the natural dynamics to carry their spacecraft to small landing region.
