02/02/2026
Lost in Space: How to Navigate around the Moon and Beyond?
by
Pablo Machuca
Assistant Professor
Aerospace Engineering
San Diego State University
Date: Friday, February 6th, 2026, 6:00PM
Location: Room 305, Engineering Building Unit II (EBU2)
Universty of California San Diego (UCSD)
Abstract:
This seminar will cover on-going research efforts on autonomous optical navigation for deep-
space missions. Applications of interest include trajectories beyond Geostationary Earth Orbit,
lunar transfers, lunar orbits, and missions to asteroids or comets. We explore the potential of
techniques such as edge detection, centroiding, neural network-based feature detection (for lunar
crater and Earth coastline detection), pattern recognition, etc. An overview of our simulation
framework is provided, including image generation, image processing, characterization and
modeling of measurement errors, filtering, uncertainty quantification, and validation through
hardware-in-the-loop experiments. Autonomous optical navigation can enable lower cost, more
flexible, independent, resilient, and sustainable space exploration, and its promise, technical
challenges, expected performance, and limitations are discussed in this talk.
Bio: Pablo Machuca is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering
at San Diego State University. Pablo completed his Ph.D. on “Mission Design for Asteroid
Exploration Using Autonomous CubeSats” at Cranfield University (United Kingdom) in 2021.
He then joined University of California San Diego as a postdoctoral researcher on “Cislunar
Space Domain Awareness” in 2021, and completed a second postdoc at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology on “Space Debris Modeling and Propagation” in 2022.
Pablo’s research interests include astrodynamics in dynamically complex environments and
autonomous guidance, navigation and control, with applications to deep-space exploration, and
small-spacecraft mission analysis and systems design.
