The STAR Group at Embry-Riddle integrates multi-body dynamics, computational mathematics and immersive visualization to advance spacecraft mission design, improve orbital safety and support long-term sustainability in cislunar space. The group’s work ranges from mission concepts for space weather observation and trajectory design for surveillance to the fundamental, mathematical structure of chaotic motion in the Earth–Moon system. It also develops autonomous GNC for proximity operations and landing, along with extended reality tools for planning, training, and interpreting complex datasets. Research is supported by sponsors including NSF, NASA and contracts with the DoW.

The research spans several connected areas:

  • Space Weather Monitoring: astronomy observations using the Moon as a natural occulter, energetic particle and magnetic field mapping, Earth magnetotail crossings, lunar impact flashes, ballistic lunar transfers into quasi-periodic orbits around Earth-Moon L4 and mission subsystem trade studies.
  • Cislunar Surveillance: Earth-Moon transfer arcs designed with solar resonance, visibility analysis, space-based observer placement in short-period orbits, constellation design, initial orbit determination, object custody and a compact cislunar orbital representation validated against GMAT and SPICE.
  • Chaos and Symbolic Dynamics: higher-dimensional phase space analysis, symbolic dynamics and braid words from Ghrist’s universal template and knot theory, FTLE maps and isolating blocks and control policies for transitions between trajectory families.
  • Rendezvous, Proximity Operations, and Landing: LiDAR- and vision-based GNC, PointNet++ segmentation and feature-based pose registration, CNN-based single-image pose estimation, SE(3) dynamics in the circular restricted full three-body problem and full-ephemeris models, neural-network CLBF control, lander touchdown stability with terramechanics and DNN tip-over prediction and hybrid passive-active soft-landing systems.
  • Extended Reality Applications: AR digital twins for mission operations, trajectory design, and surveillance, flight-data-driven lunar landing replay and LiDAR analysis with NASA Langley, advanced air mobility metrics mapping for the Florida Department of Transportation, 4D dataset visualization with machine learning interpolation and human-in-the-loop lunar landing training with an AI co-pilot.
  • Debris Hazard Modeling: spacecraft fragmentation and debris propagation in the quasi-Hill restricted four-body model, Monte Carlo risk mapping, clustering metrics such as dwell time and relative dispersion, legal and policy review and cislunar zoning for traffic management.
Embry-Riddle student stands for a picture in the lab
Embry-Riddle student wears a VR headset in the lab
One Embry-Riddle student wears a VR headset while another Embry-Riddle student watches
Two Embry-Riddle students sit at a table wearing VR headsets in the lab

Equipment

  • Vega High-Performance Computing Cluster
    • ERAU’s primary on-premise supercomputing resource for large-scale CFD, multiphysics and parallel computing.
      • 42 compute nodes, each with dual AMD EPYC 9654 96-core CPUs and 1.5 TB RAM.
      • 8 NVIDIA H100 GPUs across two GPU nodes.
      • High-speed 100 Gb InfiniBand networking.
      • Approximately 1 PB scratch storage and 1 PB user storage.
      • Supports more than 100 scientific software packages and libraries.
  • Dedicated GPU Workstations
    • 10 desktops with either 40 or 50 series graphics cards for GPU-accelerated computing. This includes machine learning and trajectory simulation, as well as XR application development in Unity.
  • XR Headsets
    • Standalone augmented and mixed reality devices used to build and test the group’s XR interfaces for orbital mechanics visualization, mission planning and lunar landing training.
      • 2 Microsoft HoloLens 2 headsets: pure augmented reality with Qualcomm 850 CPUs and custom Holographic Processing Units, suited to overlaying orbital structures and mission geometry on the real environment.
      • 3 Meta Quest 3 headsets: standalone virtual reality with Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chips and 8 GB RAM, with some mixed reality capability for immersive visualization of higher-dimensional datasets.
      • 2 Samsung Galaxy XR headsets: standalone extended reality with Snapdragon XR2+ chips, 16 GB RAM, and two 6.5 MP front cameras for high-definition passthrough and mixed reality, supporting human-in-the-loop lunar landing training with an AI co-pilot.

Lab Director

David Canales Garcia
David Canales Garcia

Assistant Professor

  • Department of Aerospace Engineering
  • College of Engineering

Related Resources

Contact Us

Dr. David Canales
Director, STAR Group