MIT Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics | March 2022
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Announcements
Nominate your colleagues for the Department Community Awards
We have officially kicked off the nomination process for our 2022 Annual Community Awards. Everyone — faculty, staff, postdocs, researchers, and students — is eligible to nominate and be nominated, and I encourage you to do so! Please visit our nomination page to read the full award descriptions, view past winners, and submit your nomination.
 
Winners will be announced here in the AeroAstro Round-Up, and award recipients will be recognized at the hybrid Department Lunch on May 11, 2022. Please note, we have made some updates to the three flagship awards of our program, based on feedback we received last year, specifically that the awards could be better differentiated. Read the full award descriptions on our website. Please submit your nominations by 5 p.m. EST on April 8, 2022.
Want to share your thoughts?
AeroAstro HQ oversees a number of channels available for the community to use if they are interested in sharing their feedback. All emails are reviewed by the inbox owner and forwarded to staff or faculty points of contact and/or department leadership as appropriate.

  • Overseen by: Communications Officer, Administrative Officer
  • General email inbox for AeroAstro for questions, comments, and other feedback. Emails are reviewed and forwarded to the appropriate person.

  • Overseen by: Academic Program Administrator
  • For questions, comments, and feedback related to undergraduate academics and student services.

  • Overseen by: Graduate Program Administrator
  • For questions, comments, and feedback related to graduate academics and student services.

  • Overseen by: Diversity Officer
  • For questions, comments, and feedback related to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. The community is welcome to review the DEI Annual Report, Implementation Plan, an updated DEI Strategic Plan, and additional initiatives and share their thoughts.

  • Overseen by: Communications Officer
  • For general questions, comments, and feedback related to strategic communications. The community is welcome to share news items, events, media requests, etc.
2022 Rising Stars in Aerospace
The 2022 Rising Stars in Aerospace event will be held on May 12 and 13 in Boulder, Colorado hosted by the Aerospace Sciences Department at UC Boulder.  The Symposium offers doctoral candidates (within 2 years of receiving their PhD) and recent PhD recipients who are completing post-doctoral research or working in the aerospace field, with a focus on participants from underrepresented groups in aerospace engineering, an opportunity to showcase their work and network with colleagues, university faculty, industry and government partners.
Save the Date for SpaceTech 2022 on April 27
 
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Location: Hybrid (Held in-person on MIT campus and virtually online)
Registration is required. Details to follow.
 
Learn more: spacetech.mit.edu | Contact: spacetech@mit.edu
 
Join us for SpaceTech 2022 on April 27! This year’s day-long conference will feature remarks from former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Dr. Joel Mozer, Chief Scientist from the United States Space Force Operations Command, Dr. Debra Emmons, Chief Technology Officer of Aerospace Corporation, and Sita Sonty of the Boston Consulting Group. The event will also stream a panel of alumni experts hosted by the MIT Sloan Club of New York, featuring Jenn Gustetic, Director, Early Stage Innovations, NASA (MIT TPP), Dr. Farah Alibay, Systems Engineer, JPL (MIT AeroAstro), and Patrick Zeitouni, Head of Space Mobility, Blue Origin (MIT Sloan).
 
You’ll also be able to watch the first-ever Aerospace 10K "Pitchfest" Competition, where participants will pitch their startup business ideas focused on entrepreneurial aerospace innovation to a panel of expert judges for a chance to win a $10K prize. The Pitchfest is part of the new Certificate in Aerospace Innovation offered by the MIT Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics in collaboration with the MIT Innovation Initiative and the Martin Trust MIT Center for Entrepreneurship.
 
Note: This is an MIT-only event for which Touchstone authentication is required.
News & Honors
 
  • Professor Larry Young has been posthumously awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal. NASA describes this award as the “highest form of recognition that is awarded to any non-Government individual or to an individual who was not a government employee during the period in which the service was performed, whose distinguished service, ability, or vision has personally contributed to NASA's advancement of United States' interests.”


  • Zoltán Spakovszky presented a “Primer on Gas Turbines – Concepts & Applications” at the ASME Advanced Gas Turbines - R&D for Sustainable Aviation and Power Generation. The congressional briefing convened experts from industry, academia, and government to discuss how advanced technologies can substantially reduce the environmental footprint of aviation, power generation, and industrial gas turbines.

  • Spot Award recipients for the month of March include: Bryt Bradley, Pam Fradkin, Shokofeh Khadivi Donboli, Josh Segall, Anthony Zolnik, and Ping Lee. Learn more about how you can recognize your colleagues (note: click "LOGIN" on the top right menu to log in via Touchstone and view internal pages) with AeroAstro's Spot Recognition program.
Conferences
 
Kevin O'Connell (Affiliated Researcher of MIT Media Lab's Space Enabled Group, and former Director of the Office of Space Commerce) gave the keynote address on Day 1.
 
The keynote on Day 2 was given by Danielle Wood. She was also the moderator for the panel titled "Indigenous Perspectives", and was part of the panel for "Behavior Incentivizing, Monitoring and Assessment" session.  
 
Daniel Jang gave a quick talk on "System-level Risk Assessment of the Low Earth Orbit Environment" that he worked on with his advisor, Richard Linares.
 
Miles Lifson also gave a virtual talk on his paper "Low Earth Orbit Slotting: Implications for Orbit Design and Policy" that he co-authored with David Arnas, Martín E. Avendaño, and Richard Linares.
 
Farah Alibay received a best paper award for “On the Operational Challenges of Coordinating a Helicopter and Rover Mission on Mars” at the IEEE conference.
Research
As low Earth orbit (LEO) becomes more crowded, there is a growing area of concern in the space domain: orbital debris and the ever-increasing risk of disrupting active satellite missions that would yield outcomes ranging from inconvenient to catastrophic for modern society. But how do you catch up to an uncooperative object tumbling through space faster than a speeding bullet? An international research collaboration between MIT ARCLab and the German Space Agency (DLR) completed a series of experiments aboard the International Space Station that illuminated a possible path forward to help address this question.
LAE recently created a map of jet contrails over the US before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, showing a steep reduction in the covered area in 2020. In 2018 and 2019 the team found total area covered by contrails was equal to Massachusetts and Connecticut combined, while in 2020 the coverage shrank by nearly 20% due to the limited travel. With this research, the team is applying the technique to predict where in the atmosphere contrails are likely to form, as they are known to play a significant role in aviation-related global warming.
Jesus Tordesillas and Jon How’s paper, "PANTHER: Perception-Aware Trajectory Planner in Dynamic Environments" was accepted for publication to IEEE Access. Read the paper | Get the code
The AeroAstro Space Resources Workshop’s latest team project, the Walking, Oligomeric, Robotic Mobility System (WORMS), has been selected as a finalist by NASA’s 2022 BIG Idea Challenge. The team received $175K to build and demonstrate their prototype, and they will perform a demonstration at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in November 2022.
WORMS team members include Aleks Siemenn, Brooke Bensche, Cesar Meza, Cormac O’Neill, Cynthia Cao, George Lordos, Isabella Golemme, Jessica Rutledge, Jessica Wu, Jolie Bercow, Juan Salazar, Kyle Thompson, Michael Brown, Mindy Long, Paula do Vale Pereira, Prajwal Manesh, Sharmi Shah, Stephanie Howe, Yang Chen, Yosef Mihretie, and Zeyad Al Awwad. Faculty advisors include Jeffrey Hoffman, Olivier de Weck, David Trumper, Sangbae Kim, (MIT) and Wendell Chun (Denver University). Thank you to the project team industry partners Boston Dynamics, MassRobotics, and Robots5.

The WORMS team is recruiting Electrical Engineers with experience in power distribution and systems with multiple rechargeable batteries. Information: bigidea2022@mit.edu
DeMi, one of STAR Lab’s CubeSats, de-orbited on the night of March 13. DeMi was a 6U CubeSat made by STAR Lab, funded by DARPA’s TTO Office, and managed by Aurora Flight Sciences. The bus was built by Blue Canyon Technologies, and the payload was designed and built by STAR Lab members.

They operated the satellite from July 13, 2020 (deployment day) to March 13, 2022 (de-orbit day) — culminating 20 months of operations and 1,336 overpasses commanded by the DeMi team through either our on-campus ground station or NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility large dish antenna. The satellite was responsive up to a couple of hours before burning down into the Earth’s atmosphere. They were able to accomplish their mission to demonstrate the use of deformable mirrors for wavefront corrections in orbit — stay tuned for papers with on-orbit results! We are super proud of our satellite, but also sad to see it go. It was surely an amazing experience for the DeMi team!
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
Upcoming Events

March 31, 2022
 
Fireside Chat
1:30-2:30 p.m.
Join Denise Phillips, Diversity Officer, to discuss excerpts of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings on race, bias, and gender.
Trans Day of Visibility: MIT Alum and Friends Panel
4-5 p.m.
Join LBGTQ+ Services, ICEO, and WGS for a panel discussion centering the voices of trans and non-binary MIT alum and friends on navigating careers in STEM and business while being gender diverse. All are welcome to attend.
Location: Rainbow Lounge 50-250

DEI Best Practices:
Diversity and Excellence in Higher Education: Is There a Conflict?
Author(s): Ratna Ghosh
Source: Comparative Education Review , Vol. 56, No. 3 (August 2012), pp. 349-365 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Comparative and International Education Society
 
The Origins of Women’s History Month
“Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as “Women’s History Week.”

In 1987 after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month.” Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama have issued a series of annual proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.” 
 
DEI Annual Report Feedback:

We are pleased to share the Annual Report developed by the AeroAstro DEI committee, chaired by Professor Paulo Lozano. Please view the DEI Annual Report, Implementation Plan, an updated DEI Strategic Plan, and additional initiatives at https://bit.ly/2XV kh1N .
 
Please note the options to provide your feedback on the Annual Report
  1. Via email to aa-diversity@mit.edu
  2. Online anonymous feedback https://bit.ly/3FYKU6c     
 
Thank you for championing the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, efforts in AeroAstro as we embark on our quest for DEI excellence.
Community Corner
EthicsPoint is an anonymous reporting hotline for whistleblower or other complaints about wrongdoing and violations of MIT policy. The most recent report from the AeroAstro department is below.

Year | Type of complaint | Notes

  • 2020 | Microaggression (racism) | Resolved in 24 hours

  • 2021 | Verbal humiliation/abuse | Resolved in 24 hours

  • 2021 | COVID campus violation | Resolved in 48 hours

  • 2021 | Not using preferred pronouns | Resolved in 24 hours

  • 2022 | COVID Mask violation | Resolved in 24 hours

It’s important that that you feel safe, respected, and supported as part of the MIT AeroAstro community. Learn more about local and Institute reporting paths. (Note: Touchstone login required to view page, click LOGIN at the top right menu.)
Successful Thesis Defenders
Dr. Oliver Jia-Richards
"Exploration of Planetary Bodies with Electrospray Thrusters"
March 15, 2022

Dr. Ricardo Baptista 
"Probabilistic modeling and Bayesian inference via triangular transport"
March 15, 2022

Did you successfully defend your graduate thesis? Send a photo to aa-communications@mit.edu to be featured as one of our Successful Defenders!
Quoted
Veteran and PhD student Andrea Henshall has used MIT Open Learning to soar from the Air Force to multiple aeronautics degrees. Read the full profile published on MIT News.
News & Publications
Below are a few highlights of AeroAstro media coverage:
👀 Spotted on Social 👀
To take advantage of an unseasonably warm winter day back in February, GA^3 organized a volleyball game on Killian Court that was featured on MIT's Instagram!
Highlights
Evan Kramer's passion for astrophotography began at a young age in rural Virginia. Now a graduate student in the department of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, he has taken his hobby to challenging new heights — capturing the beauty of the cosmos in an urban environment. Watch the video produced by MIT News.
The Bernard M. Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program (GEL) recently revamped and relaunched the course "Engineering Design and Rapid Prototyping", which is an AeroAstro course last taught in 2012. Co-instructed by Olivier de Weck and GEL Program Senior Lecturer and Associate Academic Director Jim Magarian, the course was updated to center on a new multidisciplinary project focused on the fundamental skills in engineering design. Read the story.
 
Top photo, left to right: Dylan Ryan, Laura Schwendeman, Joshua Sohn, Jade Sund, Shreya Gupta. Middle left photo, left to right: Christopher Rinard, Summer Hoss, Olivia Tobin, Rishi Kommalapati, Jessica Zhang. Middle right photo, left to right: Melissa Hummel, Kiely Smiga-McManus, Ethan Hammons. Bottom photo, left to right: Adam Zimmermann, Danielle Allison, Vivian Cheng, Sarah Hoffman, Vikram Sharma.
Michelle Lin was at Astrolab’s field test for their new rover, FLEX as the human factors expert along with Chris Hadfield (Canadian astronaut and ISS commander).
Julia Briden was recently awarded first place in the Northeast Radio Observatory Corporation (NEROC) Radio Science Symposium’s Student Presentation Competition for her presentation entitled “Switching State-Space Models for Thermospheric Density Estimation.”
Dan Erkel studies space systems and space policy in the Engineering Systems Lab, focusing on satellite constellations and commercial space stations and congestion in low Earth orbits. In 2020, Dan worked as the lead technical expert on the background study for the Hungarian National Space strategy, adopted in September 2021. Working with Dr. Brian Weeden from Secure World Foundation and Jeffrey Hoffman, Dan gave two talks on space strategies and astronaut programs in emerging space nations. The first talk, Space Programs in Emerging Space Nations - Architecting Strategies, featuring Dr. Weeden, explored challenges and options new actors and spacefaring nations face in developing national space strategies, using the lens of systems focused methods and give case studies of how Hungary and other countries recently developed their space strategies. The second talk, Space Programs in Emerging Space Nations - Astronaut Programs, features Jeff Hoffman and focuses on Hungary's astronaut program, HUNOR, where he discusses the current and future roles of astronauts.
James Dingley runs a YouTube channel, Atomic Frontier, whose mission is to explore the universe through the lens of science and engineering. His most recent space-related video is “So you want to build a planetarium?”
On March 3, Julie Shah participated on a webinar, “Cobots for Good: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration,” hosted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-UN), the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies – ICTs. The ITU organizes AI for Good, the leading UN action-oriented, global, and inclusive platform on AI, in collaboration with 40 UN sister agencies, and co-convened with Switzerland.  
Do you have highlights to include in future editions of the
Monthly Roundup?