Oscar Fuentes-Muñoz

NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at JPL’s Solar System Dynamics Group (SSD or 392R). Oscar completed his PhD in Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2023, with a dissertation titled: “Semi-analytical methods of orbit propagation for Near-Earth asteroids”. As a graduate researcher he worked for missions Janus and DART in the study of perturbations to asteroid binaries due to planetary close encounters. As an intern at JPL (JVSRP), he worked in characterizing potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) for their impact hazard in timescales of thousands of years, with a focus in km-sized asteroids.


Education: 
  • PhD Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder (2023)
  • MSc Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder (2019)
  • BSc Aerospace Engineering Technology, Polytechnical University of Catalonia (2017)

Research Interests: 
  • Asteroid dynamics
  • Near-Earth Objects
  • Planetary Defense

Professional Experience: 
  • Graduate Research Assistant – CU Boulder (2017-2023)
  • Undergraduate Research Assistant – CU Boulder (2017)
  • Undergraduate Research Assistant – UPC-ESEIAAT (2016)
    • Lightning Research Group

Selected Awards: 
  • NASA Postdoctoral Program (2023)
  • Smead Aerospace Graduate Teaching Award (2023)
  • Balsells Fellowship Program (2017)
  • Balsells Mobility Program (2017)

Selected Publications: 
  1. Fuentes-Muñoz, O., Scheeres, D. J., Farnocchia, D., & Park, R. S. (2023). The Hazardous km-sized NEOs of the Next Thousands of Years. The Astronomical Journal, 166(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/acd378
  2. Fuentes-Muñoz, O., Meyer, A. J., & Scheeres, D. J. (2022). Semi-analytical Near-Earth Objects Propagation: The Orbit History of (35107) 1991 VH and (175706) 1996 FG3. The Planetary Science Journal, 3(11), 257. https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ac83c6
  3. Meyer, A. J., Agrusa, H. F., Richardson, D. C., Daly, R. T., Fuentes-Muñoz, O., Hirabayashi, M., Michel, P., Merrill, C. C., Nakano, R., Cheng, A. F., Barbee, B., Barnouin, O. S., Chesley, S. R., Ernst, C. M., Gkolias, I., Moskovitz, N. A., Naidu, S. P., Pravec, P., Scheirich, P., … Scheeres, D. J. (2023). The Perturbed Full Two-body Problem: Application to Post-DART Didymos. The Planetary Science Journal, 4(8), 141. https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/acebc7
  4. Richardson, D. C., Agrusa, H. F., Barbee, B., Bottke, W. F., Cheng, A. F., Eggl, S., Ferrari, F., Hirabayashi, M., Karatekin, Ö., McMahon, J., Schwartz, S. R., Ballouz, R.-L., Bagatin, A. C., Dotto, E., Fahnestock, E. G., Fuentes-Muñoz, O., Gkolias, I., Hamilton, D. P., Jacobson, S. A., … Zhang, Y. (2022). Predictions for the Dynamical States of the Didymos System before and after the Planned DART Impact. The Planetary Science Journal, 3(7), 157. https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ac76c9

 

Address: 
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109
Email: 
oscar.fuentes.munoz@jpl.nasa.gov