Author: mbabcock9

Georgia Tech plays a starring role in NASA’s STARI mission to determine if telescope technology that studies exoplanets can be implemented in briefcase-sized spacecraft. 

A new NASA-funded project will have Georgia Tech aerospace engineers developing new technology to one day study planets outside our solar system. 

It’s a $10 million joint mission led by the University of Michigan called STARI — STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry. Georgia Tech’s engineers will build the propulsion systems for a pair of briefcase-sized CubeSats that will fly in orbit a few hundred yards away from one another, bouncing starlight back and forth. 

The technology could be used someday to better understand if any known exoplanets are capable of supporting life as we know it.

Interferometry is already used to study stars, gas clouds, and galaxies. Instead of using one large telescope, several smaller telescopes work as a team. The machines swap starlight to create higher resolution images than are possible from a single telescope. 

Scientists and engineers have recently proposed using interferometry to locate exoplanets. 

STARI will determine if the same type of coordination and light transmission can be done using less expensive CubeSats. Although STARI won’t peer at exoplanets, it will test the ability of small satellites to gather light into a hair-like optical fiber, then beam that light to a partner up to 100 meters away.

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AE Lecturer Kelly Griendling, AE 2006, M.S. AE 2008, Ph.D. AE 2011, is the first recipient of the C. Virgil Smith Faculty Teaching Award and will receive $3,800 for her classroom. The award supports AE faculty who primarily teach at the undergraduate level and have shown extraordinary encouragement and support to students. It will be given annually at the discretion of the AE Chair. 

“Kelly exemplifies the spirit of this award through her expertise, unwavering dedication, and innovative teaching style,” AE Chair Mitchell Walker shared. “Her commitment inspires and transforms her students, making her a great example of the type of faculty in AE.”

Griendling, who has been teaching since 2013, has received numerous teaching awards. In 2021, she received the Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: Class of 1934 CIOS Honor Roll. The next year, she was honored with the College of Engineering Women in Engineering Faculty Teaching Award, and in 2023, she received the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace.

Read the full story here.

The Space Research Institute (SRI) at Georgia Tech has initiated an internal search for its inaugural executive director. This new Interdisciplinary Research Institute (IRI) will build upon the foundation laid by the Space Research Initiative.

The SRI is dedicated to advancing cutting-edge research in space-related fields, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, and establishing strong partnerships with industry, government, academic, and international organizations. As leader of the newly established IRI, the executive director will lead the Institute’s strategic vision, nurture a culture of innovation, and champion initiatives that position Georgia Tech, via the SRI, as a global leader in space research and exploration.

The SRI is composed of faculty and staff across campus who have a common interest in space exploration and discovery. Collectively, SRI will research a wide range of topics on space and how it relates to human perspective and be an ultimate hub of all things space related at Georgia Tech. It will connect all the research institutes, labs, facilities, and colleges to pioneer the conversation about space in the state of Georgia. By working hand-in-hand with academics, business partners, and students we are committed to staying at the cutting edge of innovation. 

Click here to learn more about this position and how to apply.

News Contact: For any further details, please contact Rob Kadel at Rob Kadel.

Original story published here.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with its Crew Dragon capsule launches from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in January 2024. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

Why does a rocket have to go 25,000 mph (about 40,000 kilometers per hour) to escape Earth? – Bo H., age 10, Durham, New Hampshire

There’s a reason why a rocket has to go so fast to escape Earth. It’s about gravity – something all of us experience every moment of every day.

Gravity is the force that pulls you toward the ground. And that’s a good thing. Gravity keeps you on Earth; otherwise, you would float away into space.

But gravity also makes it difficult to leave Earth if you’re a rocket heading for space. Escaping our planet’s gravitational pull is hard – not only is gravity strong, but it also extends far away from Earth.

Read the full story here.

From deserts in Arizona to salty lakes in Canada, these environments give scientists an idea of what Mars and Jupiter’s moons might be like.

The surface is covered with fine ash. The lava fields stretch for miles, punctuated only by basalt mountains. But life could be found here if you look hard enough.

This barren land isn’t Mars or Pluto, but volcanic deserts in Iceland. The environment is so comparable to Mars’ arid landscape that researchers can use it as an analog. From Earth, they can extrapolate how planets in our galaxy and beyond could sustain life and what tools humans might need to make homes on these planets.

Georgia Tech researchers explore everywhere from Oregon’s mountaintops to Arizona’s deserts to better understand space — and life on this planet.

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Watch the video here.

Abstract: Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites are an important facet of global connectivity providing high speed Internet, cellular, IoT connectivity and so on. Combined with the rich resource availability on each satellite, LEO satellites represent a new, emerging cloud frontier – the LEO Compute Cloud. However, satellite mobility introduces non-trivial challenges when orchestrating applications for a LEO compute cloud, making it harder to deploy applications without increasing the latency and bandwidth costs. In this paper, we identify the concrete challenges in using state-of-the-art terrestrial orchestrators for a LEO compute cloud. We present Krios – a LEO compute cloud orchestration system that hides the complexities introduced by satellite mobility and enables a practical LEO compute cloud. The design of Krios is centered around a novel LEO zones abstraction that allows application providers to specify where their applications should be available. Krios provides crucial system support to enable the LEO zones abstraction, ensuring uninterrupted availability of applications in LEO zones via proactive and predictive application handovers. Our experimental evaluation of Krios with representative applications demonstrates a practical and efficient LEO compute cloud, without requiring any disruptive changes in applications and with modest system overheads. With Krios, LEO orchestration requires just ~1 application instance at a time to maintain the same availability as what prior work achieves by deploying application instances on all satellites or by performing 6-10 times more frequent expensive handovers.

See the published article here.

Jud Ready always wanted to be an astronaut.

“From first grade forward, that’s what I planned to do,” said Ready, principal research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and adjunct professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. “While studying engineering in college, I realized I didn’t want to build the spaceship. I wanted to work inside the spaceship.”

Glenn Lightsey, interim director of Georgia Tech’s Space Research Initiative, had similar aspirations. Both men tried to follow their dreams to the stars. But life presented them with alternative plans.

Read the full story here.

The comet made a close approach to Earth around Halloween, offering a rare and spectacular celestial event.

Read the article by Dr. James Wray, Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology here.

Watch the video here!