Aerospace Engineering · University of California, Irvine

Derek Phung

Undergraduate researcher working on cislunar astrodynamics, high-fidelity trajectory design, and spacecraft guidance and control.

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About

I am an Aerospace Engineering undergraduate at the University of California, Irvine and an undergraduate researcher in the eXploration Logistics & Control (XLC) Group, advised by Prof. Yuri Shimane.

My research focuses on spacecraft trajectory design and control in cislunar space, with particular interests in high-fidelity dynamical modeling, trajectory optimization, station keeping, and scientific software.

Research

Current research

High-Fidelity Earth–Moon Vertical Orbits

High-fidelity baseline design and station-keeping analysis for Earth–Moon vertical orbits near the collinear libration points. The work combines ephemeris dynamics, lunar gravity harmonics, sequential convex programming, model predictive control, and dynamical-systems analysis.

UCI eXploration Logistics & Control Group · 2026–present

Research figure Add your favorite vertical-orbit figure here.

Publications

Submitted

High-Fidelity Baseline Design and Station Keeping Analyses for Earth–Moon Vertical Orbits

Derek Phung and Yuri Shimane

AAS Space Flight Mechanics Meeting, 2027

Software

Julia

HighFidelityEphemerisModel.jl

High-fidelity spacecraft dynamics and ephemeris modeling tools for astrodynamics research.

GitHub →

Julia

AstrodynamicsCore.jl

Core astrodynamics utilities, coordinate representations, and orbital-element transformations.

GitHub →

Education

University of California, Irvine

B.S. Aerospace Engineering

Expected 2027

Get in touch

Contact

For research or professional inquiries, email contact@derekphung.com.