Author: gbieger3

Professor Álvaro Romero-Calvo and a team of Georgia Tech engineers have been selected by NASA for a TechFlights award — an effort managed by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, which demonstrates technologies through suborbital and hosted orbital testing with industry flight providers. 

In the Low-Gravity Science and Technology (LGST) Laboratory, led by Romero-Calvo, Georgia Tech engineers develop novel multiphase fluid management technologies for spacecraft by using electromagnetic and acoustic actuation mechanisms; and in this case, heat. 

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When it comes to finding solutions to climate change, there’s no shortage of technologies vying for attention, from renewable energy to electric vehicles to nuclear energy. One such contender, solar geoengineering, is favored by proponents who say it could quickly cool the planet and give the world time to fully implement efforts to limit emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere.  

But that promise comes with risks, which include potentially poorer air quality or depleted atmospheric ozone – both of which can cause serious health issues of their own. 

A new Georgia Tech School of Public Policy-led study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests that while those risks deserve further consideration, solar geoengineering could save as many as 400,000 lives a year through a reduction in temperature-related deaths attributable to climate change.

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James Shin, an electrical engineering major from Hoschton, Georgia, has received a 2025 Marshall Scholarship. He will study physics at the University of Cambridge and public policy at the University of Oxford to advance engineering in space.

Shin has coupled his academic program, first, with research in the Space Systems Design Laboratory and the Dynamics and Control System Laboratory at Georgia Tech. He then became interested in extreme environment electronics through his research in Dr. Cressler’s Silicon-Germanium Devices Lab. His expertise in resilient technology earned him coveted internships at Blue Origin and SpaceX, where he was a 2024 Matthew Isakowitz Fellow.

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Graduate student Lillian Tso, ME 2023, was selected as an analog astronaut for the Asclepios IV mission, a training exercise that simulated a space crew deployed to the moon.

The Asclepios project is a program of analog missions designed by students for students under the mentorship of trained professionals, which began in 2019.

The two-week exercise occurred earlier this year at the Sasso San Gottardo Museum in Switzerland, a decommissioned war fortress near the Gotthard Pass, where the crew remained underground for the entire exercise simulating life at the lunar South Pole.

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Team All Hands on Dec is on a mission to uncover the mysteries of the moon. The team won $1,000 and the top honors for Best Aerospace Engineering (AE) project at Georgia Tech’s Fall 2024 Capstone Design Expo held in the McCamish Pavilion on December 2.

Altogether, 107 student-led teams from nine schools and three colleges showcased their design projects to 120 judges and crowds of onlookers. 

All Hands on Dec team members Lauren Forcey, Frank Frazier, Daniel Gilliland, Bryce Laderoute, Schuyler McCaa, and Sayed Tabatabaei were among eight aerospace teams vying for the best AE project.

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The School of Physics will launch the new B.S. in Astrophysics program in summer 2025. This new major is the latest addition to the College of Sciences’ academic offerings and responds to increased student demand for courses and research opportunities in astrophysics. A minor in astrophysics will also be offered starting next summer.

According to David Ballantyne, associate chair for Academic Programs and professor in the School of Physics, the new major is unique because it focuses on the future of astronomy and astrophysics, especially in the era of discoveries made by the James Webb Space Telescope and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

“We made a concerted effort when crafting this degree to make it modern and forward-facing,” says Ballantyne. “It is very much focused on the next decade of astronomy and astrophysics, providing a strong emphasis on computational skills, data analysis, and big data.”

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In 2017, a long, oddly shaped asteroid passed by Earth. Called ‘Oumuamua, it was the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system, but it wasn’t an isolated incident — less than two years later, in 2019, a second interstellar object (ISO) was discovered. 

“‘Oumuamua was found passing just 15 million miles from Earth — that’s much closer than Mars or Venus,” says James Wray. “But it was formed in an entirely different solar system. Studying these objects could give us incredible insight into extrasolar planets, and how our planet fits into the universe.”

Wray, a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, has just been awarded a Simons Foundation Pivot Fellowship to do just that. Pivot Fellowships are among the most prestigious sources of funding for cutting-edge research, and support leading researchers who have the deep interest, curiosity and drive to make contributions to a new discipline.

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The conflict in Ukraine is showing the world a lot about the future of warfare, and it’s not all satellites and AI, conflict scholar Tim Sweijs told students and faculty during a recent Georgia Tech visit. 

“The war in Ukraine has punctured the visions that portray future wars as being hybrid, liminal, or gray-zoned,” Sweijs said, referring to conflicts that fall in between peace and warfare. “We’re seeing over the past 30 months is a war of attrition with large armies stretched out over hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of battlefront.” 

Sweijs is director of research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a senior research fellow at the Netherlands Defence Academy’s War Studies Research Centre. His talk was part of a series sponsored by the Nunn School of International Affairs focusing on the intersection of emerging technologies and their implications for conflict and statecraft.

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When it comes to space, policy is where it’s at, Ivan Allen College alum Kaitlyn Johnson, International Affairs 2014, told a room full of aspiring aerospace sector employees in the first of a new series of presentations on careers in space policy.

“There’s policy for everything. Every science and technology career field or specialization has someone in D.C. working on the political side to either get you funding, get you support on the Hill, or pass regulations to allow innovative companies to exist and pursue things,” said Johnson, deputy director of the Strategic Initiatives Group at the U.S. Space Force.

Johnson was on campus Sept. 19 to speak to postdoctoral researcher Thomas González Roberts’ space policy class and to headline a career talk open to students from across campus.

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Georgia Tech’s Colleges of Engineering and Sciences have been chosen by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to hire a new faculty member focused on solar-terrestrial science and space weather research. The NSF is prioritizing a national need in geospace physics and selected Georgia Tech from a pool of national universities.

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