About us
SpaceDyS is a spin-off of the Celestial Mechanics Group of the University of Pisa, which develops software for the orbital determination of natural and artificial objects orbiting near the Earth and provides also services in the field of Flight Dynamics.
SpaceDyS is a worldwide leader in the activities of Impact Monitoring, thanks to the NEODyS (Near Earth Objects Dynamics Site), which provides daily data on the probability of impact monitoring in the next century. According to the SSA Program, this activity is now in a migration step at Agenzia Spaziale Europea – ESA – ESRIN.
Vision
To make the near Earth and the Solar System space more and more accessible to man to allow the human kind to safely explore new worlds.
Mission
SpaceDyS will provide knowledge, algorithms, software and services related to the space dynamics domain for natural and artificial objects of the Solar System or near Earth.
meet the team!
project management
Fabrizio Bernardi
Fabrizio Bernardi obtained the Master Degree in Astronomy from University of Padova in 1999 and the Ph.D. in Astronomy from University of Roma “Tor Vergata” in 2003. He spent several years as researcher at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawai‘i. His areas of research include orbit determination of Near-Earth Asteroids and impact risk, observation strategies and correlation algorithms of space debris objects. Since the company establisment he has been project manager of several projects relative to the NEO segment of the programme Space Situational Awareness of ESA.
Linda Dimare
Linda Dimare is mainly involved in the orbit determination of space debris and NEOs. She worked for the software development for the radio science experiment of the NASA-JUNO mission to Jupiter. She is presently involved as project manager of the NEODyS Migration contact with ESA for the Space Situational Awareness Programme.
Stefano Cicalò
Stefano Cicalò obtained the Master Degree in Mathematics from University of Pisa in 2007 and the PhD in 2012. He is a researcher of SpaceDyS and his research interests are related to Celestial Mechanics. He has experience on the rotation of asteroids and terrestrial planets models, and orbit determination for radio science experiments. Recently, he was the project manager of an EXPRO+ contract with ESA for the determination of the uncertainty of the impact time related to the re-entry of the GOCE mission and other satellites.
Associates
Andrea Milani Comparetti
Founding Member
With great sorrow of the entire scientific community, he deceased on 28 November 2018. He was Full Professor of Mathematical Physics in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Pisa and Founder and President of SpaceDyS. His areas of research included the N-body problem, stability of the Solar System, asteroid dynamics and families, satellite geodesy, planetary exploration, orbit determination, and asteroid impact risk. He was the founder of the two web services, NEODyS and AstDyS, dedicated to providing general information on all known asteroids, and the developer, together with his collaborators over the years, of the software suite ORBFIT.
Zoran Knezevic
Zoran Knezevic is Full Member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and a former Director of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, Republic of Serbia. His fields of interest are in asteroid dynamics, in particular of statistical properties and classification into families, in the development of analytical perturbation theories and purely numerical methods for the computation of mean and proper elements, and chaotic dynamics. He is also collaborating with the management of the AstDyS service.
Giovanni Battista Valsecchi
Alessandro Rossi
Alessandro Rossi is a researcher at the “Istituto di Fisica Applicata “Nello Carrara” of the Italian National Research Council (IFAC-CNR). He obtained his PhD in Astrophysics and Space Techniques at the University “Paris Diderot” in France. He is an expert in spaceflight dynamics, space debris and planetary science. He is the coordinator of the H2020 ReDSHIFT project and the recipient of the 2016 “Kramer Prize”.
Giovanni Federico Gronchi
Giovanni F. Gronchi is Full Professor of Mathematical Physics in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Pisa. His research is on Solar System body dynamics, perturbation theory, orbit determination, singularities, and periodic orbits of the N-body problem. He is member of the ORBFIT consortium, the team of developers of the software suite ORBFIT.
Giacomo Tommei
Giacomo Tommei is Associate Professor of Mathematical Physics at Department of Mathematics of the University of Pisa.
He has expertise in the field of orbit determination of asteroids, impact monitoring of NEOs and orbit determination of
space debris. His current research includes the radio science experiments of the ESA mission BepiColombo
and of the NASA mission Juno.
Elisa Maria Alessi
Elisa Maria Alessi is a researcher at IFAC-CNR. She graduated in Physics from the
University of Padova and obtained the Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of
Barcelona. Her research focuses on the dynamics of space debris, with special emphasis on
the design of end-of-life solutions, and on LPO missions. In the past, she worked on the
radioscience experiment of the BepiColombo mission, and also on the dynamics of lunar
craterization.
AFFILIATIONS
