[Baps] Please Advertise: Prof. Jamie Cutler: New Trends in Aerospace Seminar - March 20

[Kerri Cahoy]

 MIT Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics

 NEW TRENDS IN AEROSPACE Seminar Series

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"Is the Sky Falling?"

Dr. James W. Cutler
Department of Aerospace Engineering
University of Michigan


DATE:  Wednesday, March 20
TIME: 4-5pm
PLACE:  33-116


ABSTRACT:
We have heard it said, “the sky is falling”, as many lament the death of
innovation and the loss of an aging workforce in the aerospace field.  The
retirement of the shuttle and the NPOES cancellation are sobering
examples.  However, the recent successes of missions like the Mars Science
Laboratory, the launch of commercial ISS resupply vehicles, and the rise of
nanosatellite successes indicate the opposite may be true: there is a new
space generation that is attempting and succeeding at novel missions never
before tried.  In this renewed effort, universities are a leading force.
At the University of Michigan, we have developed both NSF and JPL’s first
nanosatellite missions for space weather research and technology
demonstrations, respectively.  We have harnessed a global ground station
network with sites owned by independent operators.  We have also performed
novel research on attitude estimation and global ground station
scheduling.  And yet even with these successes, the sky is still falling,
literally.  The recent spectacular meteor over the Russian sky and Meteor
Crater in Arizona are testaments that our planet has very little protection
from near Earth objects.  We hypothesize that the innovation we see in
nanosatellites can be extended to enable planetary-scale protection.  We
are working with JPL to develop the first interplanetary nanosatellite
mission and have been selected by NASA for launch.  Community advancements
in survivability, communication, navigation and propulsion are enabling
solar system-scale mobility and we are opening doors for advance missions
in heliophysics, planetary science, and potentially planetary protection.


For more info you can go to:
http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/news/trends/index.html

-- 
Kerri Cahoy
Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 37-367
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Cell phone: 650 814-8148
Office phone: 617 324-6005
E-mail: kcahoy at mit.edu, kerri.cahoy at gmail.com
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