Gianmarco Santella is the Navigation Responsible at Avio. In this role, he focuses on developing navigation systems such as the VEGA Navigation Equipment (VNE), advanced algorithmic implementations, and feasibility studies for both launch vehicles and orbital missions. He will present the implications of transitioning the VEGA Launch Vehicle Family’s Navigation System from a traditional high-class inertial-based system to a modern hybrid GNSS-inertial system. This transition has led to significant improvements in orbit injection accuracy and overall system performance.

Maxime Loil is a Systems Engineer specializing in star trackers at Sodern, a subsidiary of ArianeGroup. He graduated from École Polytechnique in France and has an expertise in navigation, optronics, and algorithmics. His professional experience includes contributions to the development and improvement of daytime star trackers, which are essential for autonomous navigation systems. The presentation will focus on how star trackers can be hybridized with inertial navigation systems to achieve accurate and resilient positioning, even in GNSS-denied environments.

Benjamin Braun has been working at DLR’s German Space Operations Center since 2013 and is head of the GNSS Technology and Navigation group. He works on real-time precise orbit determination systems for LEO satellites and hybrid navigation systems for sounding rocket and launch vehicles comprising inertial sensors and GNSS receivers. He received his PhD from the Technische Universität München in 2016 on the topic of “High Performance Kalman Filter Tuning for Integrated Navigation Systems”.