Aerospace engineering associate professor to track orbits in cislunar space
Published: Nov 24, 2025 8:00 AM
By Dustin Duncan
It might look like empty space, but the vast stretch between Earth and the Moon is becoming increasingly crowded, and Davide Guzzetti aims to make sense of it.
Backed by a three-year grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Guzzetti, an associate professor of aerospace engineering, is leading a project to understand how spacecraft move through cislunar space and develop better methods for tracking them.
The award, titled “An Integrated Topological Framework for Cislunar Space Domain Awareness,” supports research that could reshape how scientists and defense agencies describe, detect and predict orbital motion in one of the solar system’s most complex regions.
Guzzetti is partnering with Firas Khasawneh, an assistant professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering, to build mathematical tools capable of mapping orbital paths that defy traditional models.
“Most of what we know about orbits comes from studying objects close to Earth, where there’s only one main source of gravity,” Guzzetti said. “Once you move into cislunar space, both Earth’s and the Moon’s gravity acts together. You can’t separate them, and that makes everything much harder to predict and describe.”
According to Guzzetti, orbital paths near Earth can be described by simple geometries — neat ellipses and parabolas that can be calculated with a single equation. But in the region where Earth’s and the Moon’s gravities compete, those paths twist into far less predictable shapes. His team is building computer models to describe these complex orbits, combining physics and advanced mathematics to represent how spacecraft actually move.
“What we’re really asking is, what does an orbit in cislunar space look like?” Guzzetti said. “And how do we describe that shape in a way that helps us understand what’s happening out there?”
Tracking anything that far from Earth isn’t easy. Sensors capture only the faintest bits of data — sometimes just a few pixels in an image — leaving researchers to connect the dots.
“You might only get a few data points per object or per orbit,” Guzzetti said. “That means you have to connect those dots carefully. You know gravity has to be obeyed, so that helps guide how those points fit together — but there’s still a lot of uncertainty.”
The collaboration with Michigan State bridges two disciplines — orbital mechanics and mathematical topology.
“That intersection is where innovation happens,” Guzzetti said.
Guzzetti said from proposal development to student involvement, Auburn makes it possible to focus on the science.
“That kind of environment is a big part of why this project came together,” he said.
Media Contact: , dzd0065@auburn.edu, 334-844-2326
Davide Guzzetti, aerospace engineering associate professor, reviews orbital visualization outputs on his computer as part of a project focused on cislunar space dynamics.
