Staff profile

Dr Nikos Mavrakis is an Assistant Professor in Space Robotics at Department of Computer Science. He is affiliated with the Durham Space Research Centre (SPARC), where he coordinates robotics activities. 

His research focuses in dynamics-based, task-informed robotic grasping and manipulation, and its applications in space robotics, primarily in in-space-assembly and manufacturing (ISAM), space debris capturing, and planetary manufacturing. 

Prior to joining Durham, he was an Assistant Professor in Space Engineering at School of Metallurgy and Materials at University of Birmingham. He was also a JPL Research Fellow at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he was developing robotic vision applications for the Mars Sample Return mission. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at University of York in evolutionary robotic grasping, and at Surrey Space Centre, University of Surrey in robotic grasping for orbital robotics. 

He holds a PhD from University of Birmingham, titled "Estimation of objects’ inertial parameters, and their usage in robot grasping and manipulation". He also holds a M.Sc. in Space Studies from KU Leuven, Belgium, and a Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from National Technical University of Athens, Greece.

Funded Projects

As Principal Investigator (PI)

• "Robotic Manipulation of Soft Bags", The Royal Society, Project ID: RG/R1/251450 (Total Project Funding £23K)

As Co-Investigator (CO-I)

• "CE4SPACE (Circular Economy for Space)", Marie Curie Doctoral Network, Horizon Europe, Project ID: 101311999 (Total Project Funding €4.3M)

Conference Paper

• Integrating Human-in-the-loop AI to Tackle Space Communication Delay Challenges
  
  Mavrakis, N., Law, E. L., & Shum, H. P. H. (2025). Integrating Human-in-the-loop AI to Tackle Space Communication Delay Challenges. In Advancing Human-Computer Interaction for Space Exploration (SpaceCHI 2025) (pp. 15:1-15:16). Schloss Dagstuhl. https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.SpaceCHI.2025.15

Journal Article

• Robust tube localization for Mars Sample Return: Lightweight YOLO-segmentation with angle-guided PnP
  
  Posada, D., Pham, T., Mavrakis, N., & Bailey, P. (2026). Robust tube localization for Mars Sample Return: Lightweight YOLO-segmentation with angle-guided PnP. Pattern Recognition, 171(Part A), Article 112190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patcog.2025.112190

Report

• Capturing Spent Rocket Bodies with Robots
  
  Mavrakis, N. (2025). Capturing Spent Rocket Bodies with Robots. Durham University Space Research Centre (SPARC). https://doi.org/10.62512/pubs.sparc.0002