About
Dr. Chen has contributed to JAXA and CNES’ interplanetary projects, such as PROCYON, DESTINY, and MMX. She has obtained several young investigator grants and has twice received the COSPAR Outstanding Paper Award for Young Scientists.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Astrodynamics
- space trajectory design
- planetary geodesy
- nanosatellite engineering
- space environment (debris & upper atmosphere) modeling
Current research
To integrate space mission and trajectory design with spacecraft system design, exploiting precision of astrodynamics and speed of machine learning, and to develop embedded systems for onboard autonomous GNC (guidance, navigation, and control) and geodesy processing for actual operations.
Publications
Teaching
Courses on spacecraft design, astrodynamics (aka. orbital mechanics), optimal control and estimation.
Supervision of students' research, publication, and thesis.
Biography
Dr. Hongru Chen is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the University of Southampton, which she joined in May, 2024. She earned her Bachelor's degree from Northwestern Polytechnical University in China in 2010 and her Ph.D. from Kyushu University in 2015, both in aerospace engineering. She conducted her Ph.D. research at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and once worked at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Paris Observatory, and Kyushu University in Japan. Her research interests lie in astrodynamics and its application in space mission and trajectory design, and upper atmosphere modelling.