Kristina's research focuses on the global optimization of low-thrust, asteroid tour missions. In her PhD work, she is developing a design space pruning methodology to quickly identify asteroid combinations, launch dates, and flight times that will result in low propellant consumption and flight time. Additionally, she is applying combinatorial optimization methods to find the optimum solution for the reduced design space.

Eammon’s research interests involve evaluating the risk and reliability associated with current Mars exploration architectures. His focus is on developing a novel approach for characterizing both risk and reliability in the ascent and descent phases of missions.

Joy’s research focuses on the notion of value in engineering system design and its usage as a decision making tool. It is an interdisciplinary area combining economics and system design and optimization, which is intended to challenge the traditional cost-centric mindset. This work is expected to augment the current drive for the expansion and sustainability of best practices in Space Acquisitions.

Adam's research focuses on studying elliptic, periodic orbits at Jupiter's moon Ganymede and Saturn's moon Enceladus. He hopes to find, study, understand, and support families of these science trajectories, and prove that some of them are better at meeting NASA's new "flagship" mission requirements than the orbits previously proposed. 

Zarrin is currently researching a fully autonomous lunar landing system that would be capable of optimize a vehicle’s fuel usage and minimize its landing footprint. She is performing a quantitative trade study of manned and autonomous landings to optimize the flight trajectory.  

Ian's current research involves developing and maturing inflatable aerodynamic decelerators (IADs) for use during atmospheric entry.  As part of this research, Ian has worked on conceptual IAD system design, entry flight mechanics trades, and the development of fluid-structure interaction codes.  Presently, Ian is the research engineer on a series of supersonic wind tunnel tests of a candidate IAD configuration.

Chris is the Graduate Teaching Assistant for AE4310 (Orbital Mechanics I) and AE4356 (Aerospace Senior Design I)

John’s research involves developing a three dimensional finite element based ablation and thermal analysis tool, and incorporating it into a Monte-Carlo analysis. The Monte Carlo analysis will allow probabilities of exceeding design specifications to be evaluated. These calculated probabilities then become the objective functions in an optimization scheme where the outcome is a more robust design. The goal of the research is to assess and improve the robustness of a heat shield features such as a compression pads.

Greg is developing a theoretical framework for adressing the question of
Space Responsiveness, encompassing issues such as Technology Maturity
and Obsolescence in spacecraft design and operation. One of the
applications of this research is to identify ways to accelerate the
Acquisition, Design, and Launch Cycles in the space industry. When
applied to the Fractionated Spacecraft concept, such a framework should
prove relevant to understand how to affect or even disrupt these present
dominant cycles.
 

Mike is developing a Conceptual Design Mission Analysis System for Guided Entry Systems. His research efforts focus on conceptual design of entry systems emphasizing guidance, navigation, and control aspects. In particular, his research concentrates on the identification, simulation, and evaluation of the enabling guidance, navigation, and control technologies for pinpoint landing (sub-100 m landed accuracies) and integrating these technologies into a conceptual design framework for entry vehicles.

Allison is working on advancing research into Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators (IADs) for planetary Entry, Descent, and Landing. Her current focus is on structural analysis of these systems.

Ashley’s research focus is supersonic retropropulsion for planetary entry applications, specifically at Mars.  This includes both systems-level modeling/analysis and the development of computational fluid dynamics approaches for simulating the effects of supersonic retropropulsion on blunt-bodied entry vehicle aerodynamics and aerothermodynamics.  Ashley is also the EDL lead for the Mars Gravity Biosatellite program, a student-spacecraft project in collaboration with MIT.

Jarret’s research focused on developing a comprehensive systems engineering framework for evaluating flexible space systems.  This frame work will be applied to an Orbital Sciences/IBM/JPL/Georgia Tech proposal for the DARPA Systems F6 fractionated spacecraft concept.

Greg is working on space trajectory optimization using differential dynamic Programming. The goal is to build an in-house tool capable of solve a wide range of space trajectory problems. He is also working on developing autonomous optimal trajectories for landing on asteroids.                                                                         

Chris’s research will focus on guidance, navigation, and control for entry, descent, and landing on Mars in an effort to reduce landing footprint and gain access to more scientifically interesting landing sites. He will examine the role of the astronaut in EDL in order to meet the added requirements of manned missions. A critical aspect of the research will be a qualitative study of manual versus autonomous control.

Richard is currently pursuing a PhD in Aerospace Engineering and a MS in Computer Science specializing in intelligent systems.  He has been tasked to the design and development of the Planetary Entry System Synthesis Tool (PESST).  His interests include: distributed multidisciplinary design optimization, global trajectory optimization and artificial intelligence.
 

Bala is the Graduate Teaching Assistant for AE4310 (Orbital Mechanics I) and AE4356 (Aerospace Senior Design I)

Brad is developing a Conceptual Design Mission Analysis System for Guided Entry Systems. His research efforts focus on conceptual design of entry systems emphasizing guidance, navigation, and control aspects. In particular, his research concentrates on the identification, simulation, and evaluation of the enabling guidance, navigation, and control technologies for pinpoint landing (sub-100 m landed accuracies) and integrating these technologies into a conceptual design framework for entry vehicles.

Chris's current research involves developing and maturing inflatable aerodynamic decelerators (IADs) for use during atmospheric entry.  Chris focuses on the use of IADs in the supersonic region of re-entry.

John's current research involves the development of methods for hypersonic entry aeroshell shape optimization in order to increase landed mass capability. Configurations that maximize drag-area while satisfying a specified lift-to-drag ratio requirement will be determined. Trade studies will also include considerations for stability, aerothermodynamics, payload packaging, and mass estimation for both blunt and slender bodies.

Bob Thompson is researching methodologies for designing space transportation architectures. He is interested in developing techniques for probabilistic optimization of complex architecture design problems for use at the conceptual stage of design.

Research interests include space systems engineering and trajectory reconstruction. Accurate post-flight reconstruction of a vehicle's trajectory during entry into a planetary atmosphere can produce a wide array of valuable information. The data collected through the reconstruction of entry, descent, and landing system performance enables the quantification of performance margins for future systems. Beyond the engineering knowledge gained through trajectory reconstruction, the results may also be used by planetary scientists to generate an accurate atmospheric profile.

Jimmy's current research involves understanding the effects of propellant re-fueling technologies on exploration missions. The results of this work will establish how to best apply these technologies to the design of an architecture and ascertain the propellant delivery cost that must be achieved. His work is being specifically applied to NASA's current lunar exploration architecture.