Simone D’Amico

About

Simone D’Amico, science fellow at the Hoover Institution, is associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics (AA), the W. M. Keck Faculty Scholar in the School of Engineering, and professor of geophysics (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is the founding director of the Stanford Space Rendezvous Laboratory, codirector of the Center for Aerospace Autonomy Research (CAESAR), and director of the undergraduate program in aerospace engineering at Stanford.

Dr. D’Amico has more than twenty years of years of experience in research and development of autonomous spacecraft and distributed space systems, including multiagent architectures. He developed the distributed guidance, navigation, and control systems of several such missions and is currently the institutional principal investigator of three autonomous satellite swarms funded by NASA (Starling, currently operational in orbit) and the National Science Foundation (VISORS, SWARM-EX).

Outside of academia, D’Amico is on the advisory boards of four space start-ups focusing on distributed space systems for future applications in SAR (aynthetic aperture radar) remote sensing, orbital lifetime prolongation, and space-based solar power.

Before joining Stanford, D’Amico was research scientist and team leader at the German Aerospace Center. He is the recipient of several awards, including the 2024 NASA Ames Honor Award (for Starling); awards for best paper at conferences of the International Astronautical Federation (2022), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE, 2021), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (2021), and the American Astronomical Society (2019); the IEEE M. Barry Carlton Award; the Leonardo 500 Award by the Leonardo da Vinci Society / Italian Scientists and Scholars In North America Foundation (2019); the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale / National Aeronautic Association Group Diploma of Honor (2018); the German Aerospace Center’s Sabbatical/Forschungssemester (2012) and Wissenschaft Preis (2006); and NASA’s Group Achievement Award (for GRACE mission, 2004). He holds BS and MS degrees from Politecnico di Milano (2003) and a PhD from Delft University of Technology (2010).