The sky’s the limit: Aerospace students best in the U.S. in solar system trajectory competition
Published: Mar 18, 2026 8:50 AM
By Olivia Ballard
From left: Joe Ivarson, Luis Manuel Postigo, Eirik Mulder and Nick Nurre helped lead a team that ranked No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 10 overall in NASA’s Global Trajectory Optimization Competition.
Auburn Engineering students led all U.S. teams at NASA’s Global Trajectory Optimization Competition, ranking No. 1 nationally and 10th overall among 101 teams from around the world.
Joe Ivarson, Eirik Mulder and Nick Nurre, all in aerospace engineering, and Luis Manuel Postigo, in computer science and software engineering and aerospace engineering, worked alongside a team of engineers tasked with navigating an optimal route through a solar system.
Computer Science and Software Engineering graduate students Jeremy Wang, Pedro Vasconcelos, and Joe Lin also provided programming support and ideas during the early stages of the competition.
According to Mulder, the challenge was to create a long-term tour of the fictional celestial system Altaira, in which the spacecraft must collect as much science as possible by visiting planets and asteroids within a limited time frame. The competition also included challenges of timed arrivals to planets, solar sail propulsion and reliance on gravity assists.
He said one of the toughest parts was balancing out each aspect of the challenge and getting a clear picture with so many moving pieces.
“A major part of the challenge was identifying and sorting through all the possible ways we could try to solve the problem,” Mulder said. “Dividing into teams to tackle separate challenges allowed us to identify our best approaches, and then we narrowed down our technique and iterated from there.”
The competition spanned four weeks, with a live leaderboard and a discussion board for communicating with other teams. Competitors are given the problem statement, planet, asteroid and comet data and submission formats to guide them.
“We started with solving trajectories to the planets, collecting as much data as we could first and then we moved on to asteroids and comets,” Nurre said. “Waiting for everyone to submit their final results was nerve-racking, but it was all worth it once it was over, and we were still tenth overall. It was even more exciting finding out we were 1st in the U.S.”
The problem was designed to mirror real-world systems and challenge teams to develop techniques that could be applied to the real world, according to Ivarson.
“Having the resources and coursework from Auburn provided us with the preparation needed to effectively approach the problem,” he said. “The problems are molded after real state-of-the-art mission challenges, and we were able to apply our lab experience and collaborate to develop solutions.”
The team was led by Davide Guzzetti and Ehsan Taheri, associate professors of aerospace engineering.
“Our students have demonstrated an exceptional ability to utilize their knowledge of optimization and astrodynamics,” Taheri said. “Through effective teamwork, they successfully applied this knowledge to tackling challenging space mission problems.”
Guzzetti said the competition is an exciting opportunity for students to test their coding and mathematics skills in a complex astrodynamics challenge.
“This year’s outcome is a testament to the hard work and creativity of the students who participated in the competition,” he said.
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