Author: mbabcock9

Tuesday, February 18, 2025 11:00AM in Guggenheim 442. Join us for the AE Seminar with Piyush Mehta about Advanced Space Weather Characterization for Satellite Operations!

Piyush Mehta

Associate Professor | Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering | West Virginia University

About the Seminar: 
Space Weather is the combined study of the Sun, the solar wind, and the geospace environment that can influence technological systems and endanger human life and health. Known impacts of space weather include radiation exposure for astronauts and civil aviation passengers and flight crew, damage to electric power grids, navigation/communication degradation, satellite charging and damage, and satellite operations. Space weather affects several aspects of satellite operations in low Earth orbit (LEO) including mission design and planning, catalogue maintenance, forensic analysis, policy, and collision avoidance. The US Space Policy Directive-3, National STM Policy has emphasized the necessity “to make significant contributions to establish a quality threshold for actionable collision avoidance warning to minimize false alarms”. Space weather modeling is the largest source of uncertainty and a grand challenge in LEO where the majority active satellite population resides. Current operational system for space weather is not accessible for non-DoD use, is limited in its fidelity, and has no framework for robust uncertainty quantification. This talk will cover recent progress towards addressing these limitations and advancing space weather modeling and characterization for satellite operations. 

About the Speaker: 
Prof. Mehta is currently an associate professor in the department of mechanical, materials, and aerospace engineering at West Virginia University. He is the director of the Astrodynamics, Space ScIence and Space Technology (ASSIST) Lab and the Center for Innovation in Space Exploration and Research (CISER) with interests at the intersection of astrodynamics, space weather, data science, and space safety and sustainability. His group is supported by funding from NSF, NASA, DoD, DoE, and IARPA. He is the recipient of the 2021 NSF CAREER award, a class of 2025 AIAA Associate Fellow, and a member of the Space Weather Advisory Group (SWAG), a Federal Advisory Committee for the White House Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) Subcommittee. He has co-authored 50 peer-reviewed publications and delivered more than 35 invited talks across the world. He received his PhD in aerospace engineering from the University of Kansas in 2013. 

Wednesday, February 5, 2025 from 12:30pm to 1:30pm in Marcus Nanotechnology 1116-1118

Dr. Leonid Olifer (Univ. of Alberta) Quantifying extreme space weather hazards: space radiation and its impact on our planet

Speaker: Dr. Leonid Olifer

Title: Quantifying extreme space weather hazards: space radiation and its impact on our planet

Abstract:  Space radiation poses significant challenges for space exploration and influences Earth’s weather and climate. In this talk, I will delve into the physics of high-energy particles that dominate the space environment and examine the worst-case radiation levels that could be encountered during space flights. Specifically, I will discuss natural, self-limiting plasma processes that can cap extreme radiation levels around Earth—phenomena first theorized by Kennel and Petschek in 1966 and confirmed by our recent findings. Additionally, I will highlight ongoing space-borne experiments, led by my research group, to enhance our understanding of space weather.

Bio: Dr. Leon Olifer is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physics at the University of Alberta, where he studies space physics and radiation belt dynamics. He earned his Bachelor of Applied Physics at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in Ukraine, graduating first in class. He spent a year working at CERN in Switzerland and later moved to Canada, where he got his PhD in Physics at the University of Alberta, focusing on space weather and geomagnetic storms. Leon has played key roles in multiple Canadian and international space missions. For example, he is a deputy mission scientist for RADICALS satellite and a PI of a balloon-borne experiment SPRINT.

January 13, 2025 from 3:30pm to 4:30pm.

From the surface of Mars to the ocean of Enceladus: Advancing the Frontier of Exploration with Adaptive Robots

Hiro Ono
Group Supervisor of the Robotic Mobility Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Monday, January 13

3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

Guggenheim 246

Virtual Microsoft Teams

About the Seminar:

Robots have been at the forefront of Solar System exploration for over seven decades. Most recently, NASA’s Perseverance rover is on its mission to find a sign of ancient Martian life that might have existed billions of years ago. However, current Mars exploration requires ample environmental knowledge accumulated over decades and across multiple missions, resulting in a slow progression toward exploring unvisited worlds beyond Mars. I envision a new robotic space exploration (RSE) paradigm called RSE 3.0, in which a highly adaptive robotic system would explore previously unvisited worlds in one shot. As an instantiation of RSE 3.0, we developed the EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor) robot, a snake-like robot designed for exploring the potentially inhabited subsurface ocean of Enceladus, a small icy moon of Saturn. EELS combines highly versatile robotic hardware with intelligent, risk-aware autonomy so that it can flexibly adapt its behaviors after landing. We built prototypes of EELS and successfully tested them in a wide range of environments, including natural vertical holes on Athabasca Glacier in Canada. Adaptive and intelligent robots like EELS will be a key enabler of the RSE 3.0 paradigm, which would open the door to the exploration of more distant and challenging worlds than Mars. This seminar will start by describing the autonomous motion planning capability of the Perseverance rover, followed by research on AI/ML applications for future planetary rovers. The technologies and the field demonstrations of EELS will be presented in depth, with particular emphasis on autonomy. Finally, the vision and the potential of RSE 3.0 will be discussed with the audience.

About the Speaker:

Hiro Ono is the Group Supervisor of the Robotic Mobility Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Currently, he serves as the PI of the EELS project to create a highly versatile and intelligent robot for exploring unknown environments such as Enceladus vents. As a member of the Mars 2020 Rover (M2020) Mission, he supports tactical robotic operations. Previously, he developed M2020’s autonomous driving algorithm and also led the landing site traversability analysis. His research interest is centered around the application of robotic autonomy to space exploration, with an emphasis on machine learning applications to perception, data interpretation, and risk-aware decision-making. Before joining JPL in 2013, he was an assistant professor at Keio University in Japan. He graduated from MIT with PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2012. A father of a rebellious princess and a mischievous munchkin. Go Red Sox and Hanshin Tigers.

November 22, 2024 at11am: Format: Hybrid, In person at ES&T L1175 and Virtual via Zoom (synchronous) at 11am

Virtual meeting information
Link: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/99025161765?pwd=2BpUpWZkyazaaZIvEnTTcECpvy1E5D.1
Meeting ID: 990 2516 1765
Passcode: 564312
Phone: +1 669 444 9171 US

Aug. 23 Dr. Frances Rivera-Hernández & Dr. Christopher Carr (Welcome,
Astrobiology updates, and announcements)
Aug. 30 Dr. Yubo Su, Princeton
Sept. 6 Dr. James Wray, Georgia Tech
Sept. 13 Dr. Xinting Yu, UT San Antonio
Sept. 20 Dr. Ziyu Huang, Georgia Tech
Sept. 27 Dr. Indujaa Ganesh, GT (ExplOrigins Event) – Diferent Zoom link!!!
Oct. 4 Dr. Margaret Kosal, Georgia Tech
Oct. 11 Dr. Hubbard James, Agnes Scott
Oct. 18 TBD
Oct. 25 Dr. Alka Rani, NASA MSFC
Nov. 1 TBD
Nov. 15 Dr. Olga Harrington Pinto Auburn University (may move to Nov. 1st.)
Nov. 22 TBD

November 19, 2024 from 12pm to 1pm.

Join the Space IRI Executive Director Search Town Hall: Share your Input!

We invite you to join us for a hybrid town hall on Tuesday, November 19, from noon to 1:00 p.m., to discuss the search for the executive director of the new Space Research Institute (SRI). This event will be hosted  both in-person at the atrium in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) main building (755 Ferst Dr, NW Atlanta, GA 30332) and virtually on Microsoft Teams. All Georgia Tech personnel and affiliated faculty are welcome!

Our goal is to keep the community informed about the search process, answer your questions, and gather your feedback on what qualities and priorities you believe are essential for the future executive director. Julia Kubanek, Georgia Tech’s vice president for interdisciplinary research, will kick off this important discussion. Your input is crucial as we shape the future leadership of the SRI, so we hope to see you there!

If you are unable to attend the town hall, we encourage you to fill out a brief survey to share your thoughts.

For more information visit the event page here.

November 15, 2024 at 11am: Format: Hybrid, In person at ES&T L1175 and Virtual via Zoom (synchronous) at 11am

Virtual meeting information
Link: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/99025161765?pwd=2BpUpWZkyazaaZIvEnTTcECpvy1E5D.1
Meeting ID: 990 2516 1765
Passcode: 564312
Phone: +1 669 444 9171 US

Aug. 23 Dr. Frances Rivera-Hernández & Dr. Christopher Carr (Welcome,
Astrobiology updates, and announcements)
Aug. 30 Dr. Yubo Su, Princeton
Sept. 6 Dr. James Wray, Georgia Tech
Sept. 13 Dr. Xinting Yu, UT San Antonio
Sept. 20 Dr. Ziyu Huang, Georgia Tech
Sept. 27 Dr. Indujaa Ganesh, GT (ExplOrigins Event) – Diferent Zoom link!!!
Oct. 4 Dr. Margaret Kosal, Georgia Tech
Oct. 11 Dr. Hubbard James, Agnes Scott
Oct. 18 TBD
Oct. 25 Dr. Alka Rani, NASA MSFC
Nov. 1 TBD
Nov. 15 Dr. Olga Harrington Pinto Auburn University (may move to Nov. 1st.)
Nov. 22 TBD

November 14 at 3:30 to 4:30 pm at the College of Computing, room 102

Experimenting on Commercial Sub-orbital Rockets – you can still be an early adopter

Steven Collicott
Laboratory time for the study of two-phase fluids topic in weightlessness has always been scarce. In
contrast, colleagues with Earthly two-phase fluids topics are able to work all day long, every day, in a
laboratory, continually improving their experiments. The International Space Station (ISS) is the most
amazing and the largest orbiting vehicle ever, and yet it is woefully small from the point of view of
laboratory space for all the science and technology maturation that NASA needs for future space
exploration goals.
Right now, in the early years of the New Space Age, several reusable commercial sub-orbital rockets are
operational and deliver three minutes of very high-quality weightlessness for automated or human-
tended experiments in a very wide range of topics. Fluids experiments related to basic capillary fluid
physics, in-space propellant control and gauging, and the separation of blood from air in future
spaceflight medical tools are discusses. Impacts of vehicle capabilities, integration requirements, flight
safety, ground operations, and similar, on experiment design are then considered. Lessons learned from
fluids experiments flying in Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, and Exos’s
BLK3 rockets are shared. The major contributions of undergraduate aerospace engineering students to
these experiments, made during the students’ time in the author’s “Zero-gravity Flight Experiment”
design-build-test class are included throughout.
Interested researchers can get involved and still be early adopters, as the field appears poised to boom
in the next three years.

Bio
Steven Collicott is a professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the College of
Engineering at Purdue University. His preferred research and teaching is in the topic of low-gravity fluid
dynamics. To date he has designed a highly successful space station capillary fluids experiment, flown
forty-five parabolic aircraft flight experiments, launched eight experiments in Blue Origin’s New Shepard
crew capsule, one in Virgin Galactic VSS Unity, seven in Exos Aerospace (was Armadillo) rocket test
flights, and built two drop towers. In late 2021 he was chosen to fly a capillary fluids experiment for
NASA Flight Opportunity Program on a Virgin Galactic sub-orbital mission. He has served on National
Academy and CASIS committees related to fluids in space, chaired the Sub-orbital Applications Users
Group of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, and served a three-year executive rotation in the
American Society for Gravitational and Space Research.