I am an External Collaborator of the Celestial Mechanics Group at the Department of Mathematics (University of Pisa).
My research is about Orbit Determination and Radio Science experiments of space missions.
I am a ORBIT14 software developer.
Determination of the gravity field of planets via interplanetary orbiter.
Ring mascons model for the gravitational potential of fluid planets.
Study of the rank deficiencies in the orbit determination problem.
Radio Science for the Juno mission to Jupiter.
Chaotic orbit determination.
Lense-Thirring effect determination in the Solar System.
ORBIT14 is an orbit determination and parameter estimation software developed by the Department of Mathematics (UniPi) and Space Dynamics Services srl.
It is a mission-specific software, able to process Doppler and ranging data of the ESA's BepiColombo and the NASA's Juno mission.
Part of my PhD job was to develop the differential corrector part of the software for the Juno mission.
My research project during graduate school was to perform numerical simulations of the NASA's Juno mission Radio Science Experiment with the ORBIT14 orbit determination software. Simulations included Jupiter's Gravity Field determination, Rotation axis and Angular Momentum from the Lense-Thirring effect. You can find my dissertation below.
I first approached Orbit Determination for my Master Thesis. In that occasion we developed a semi-analytic theory for estimating the uncertainty in the determination of the gravity field of a planet via interplanetary orbiter. We applied the method to the Juno mission. You can find my dissertation below.
G. Schettino, D. Serra, G. Tommei, V. Di Pierri, A Test of Gravitational Theories Including Torsion with the BepiColombo Radio Science Experiment, Universe, 6, 175 (2020)
D. Durante, M. Parisi, D. Serra, et al., Jupiter's Gravity Field Halfway Through the Juno Mission, Geophysical Research Letters, 47, e2019GL086572. doi: 10.1029/2019GL086572 (2020)
D. Serra, G. Lari, G. Tommei, D. Durante, L. Gomez Casajus, V. Notaro, M. Zannoni, L. Iess, P. Tortora A Solution of Jupiter's Gravitational Field from Juno Data with the ORBIT14 Software, MNRAS 490, 766-772 (2019), doi: 10.1093/mnras/stz2657
D. Serra, F. Spoto, A. Milani A multi-arc approach to chaotic orbit determination problems, Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy 130, 75 (2018) , doi:10.1007/s10569-018-9868-y
D. Serra, F. Spoto, A. Milani A multi-arc approach to chaotic orbit determination problems, pre-print
G. Schettino, D. Serra, G. Tommei, A. Milani Addressing some critical aspects of the BepiColombo MORE relativity experiment, Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, 130, 72 (2018), doi: 10.1007/s10569-018-9863-3
D. Serra, V. Di Pierri, G. Schettino, G. Tommei Test of General Relativity during the BepiColombo interplanetary cruise to Mercury, Phys. Rev. D 98 064059 (2018), doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.98.064059
L. Iess, W.M. Folkner, D. Durante, M. Parisi, Y. Kaspi, E. Galanti, T. Guillot, W.B. Hubbard, D.J. Stevenson, J.D. Anderson, D.R. Buccino, L. Gomez Casajus, A. Milani, R. Park, P. Racioppa, D. Serra, P. Tortora, M. Zannoni, H. Cao, R. Helled, J,I. Lunine, Y. Miguel, B. Militzer, S. Wahl, J.E.P. Connerney, S.M. Levin, S.J. Bolton The measurement of Jupiter's asymmetric gravity field, Nature (2018), doi:10.1038/nature25776
W.M. Folkner, L. Iess, J. Anderson, S. Asmar, D. Buccino, D. Durante, M. Feldman, L. Gomez Casajus, M. Gregnanin, A. Milani, M. Parisi, R. Park, D. Serra, G. Tommei, P. Tortora, M. Zannoni, S. Bolton, J. Connerney, S. Levin Jupiter gravity field estimated from the first two Juno orbits, Geophysical Research Letters, 44 (2017), doi:10.1002/2017GL073140
D. Serra, L. Dimare, G. Tommei, A. Milani Gravimetry, rotation and angular momentum of Jupiter from the Juno Radio Science experiment, Planetary and Space Science, 134, 100-111 (2016), doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2011.03.031
S. Le Maistre, W.M. Folkner, R.A. Jacobson, D. Serra Jupiter spin-pole precession rate and moment of inertia from Juno radio-science observations Planetary and Space Science, 126, 78-92 (2016)
G. Tommei, L. Dimare, D. Serra, A. Milani On the Juno Radio Science Experiment: models, algorithms and sensitivity analysis Monthly Notices of Royal Astronomical Society, 446 (2), 3089-3099 (2015)
G. Tommei, L. Dimare, A. Milani e D. Serra Orbit determination for the radio science experiment of the NASA mission Juno Proceedings of the 63rd International Astronautical Congress, Napoli, 1-5 October, available on CD-ROM, IAC-12.A3.5.4
Juno Science Team Meeting, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio (TX), September 3-6, 2019
50th Division of Dynamical Astronomy Annual Meeting, Boulder, CO, June 10-13, presenting Orbit determination of space missions in Pisa: results from Juno and simulations from BepiColombo
BepiColombo Science Working Team, Tokyo, Japan, March 11-14, 2019
XV Congresso di Scienze Planetarie, Florence, February 4-8, presenting A Long Tradition of Orbit Determination in Pisa: the Juno mission to Jupiter
AGU Fall Meeting 2018, Washington D.C., December 10-14, 2018, presenting the poster The ORBIT14 Solution of Jupiter's Gravity Field From Juno Data
Juno Science Team Meeting, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio (TX), September 26-28, 2018
Marcel Grossmann XV meeting, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Italy, July 1-7, 2018, presenting A test of General Relativity during the BepiColombo interplanetary cruise to Mercury
CHAOS2018 conference, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Rome, Italy, June 5-9, 2018, presenting A multi-arc approach to orbit determination problems
Juno Science Team Meeting, University of Colorado, Boulder (CO), February 26-28, 2018
Juno Science Team Meeting, New Orleans (LA), December 9-10, 2017
European Planetary Science Conference 2017 - Riga, Latvia - Sept. 18-22, 2017, presenting Jupiter Gravity Field from the Juno mission first year of data
CELMEC VII, International Conference on Celestial Mechanics - San Martino al Cimino, September 4-8, 2017 presenting New advances on Chaotic Orbit Determination
Juno Science Team Meeting, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio (TX), November 7-10, 2016
Juno Science Team Meeting, JPL, Pasadena (CA), June 30-July 4, 2016
Juno Science Team Meeting, University of Colorado, Boulder (CO), March 8-11, 2016
Juno Science Team Meeting, APL, Laurel (MD), November 4-6, 2015
Juno Science Team Meeting, Caltech, Pasadena (CA), September 29-October 2, 2014
IAU Symposium 310 - Complex Planetary Systems - Namur, Belgium - July 7-11, 2014 presenting Orbit determination for the Radio Science experiment of the NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter and presenting the poster A semi-analytic theory for estimating the uncertainty of a space mission Gravity Science experiment.
Juno Science Team Meeting, University of Colorado, Boulder (CO), March 26-28, 2014
CELMEC VI, International Conference on Celestial Mechanics - San Martino al Cimino, September 2-6, 2013 presenting A semi-analytic method for the estimation of the uncertainty of a space mission Gravity Science experiment.
Juno Science Team Meeting, Lockheed Martin, Littleton - Denver (CO), April 15-18, 2013
Juno Science Team Meeting, CNR, Rome, November 5-9, 2012