MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics | August 2020

We’re on our way to Mars! NASA's Perseverance Rover began its seven-month journey to Mars on July 30, 2020, launching from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a ULA Atlas V rocket. One of seven payloads traveling onboard is MOXIE, or Mars Oxygen In Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. Developed by a team of researchers from AeroAstro, MIT Haystack Observatory, and JPL, the experiment aims to generate oxygen from Martian air. Read the full story on MIT News.

A Note from the Department Head Dear AeroAstro Community, It's been a busy summer! We took a brief hiatus from sending the Roundup in July, and we've been hard at work this month preparing for the fall. Though the fall semester won't look the way we wish it could, it's exciting to feel the energy our students bring as we prepare for the upcoming semester. While many of us will still be working and learning from home this semester, some of you have been granted access to return to campus. We've all seen the news stories of schools that opened and shut back down again within a few days due to lax social distancing. The data shows us the value of going the extra mile in the interest of public health. Since March, MIT has developed and implemented new policies in order protect our community from the deadly pandemic that has upended our lives and work. To those of you who will return physically to campus: we are trusting you to be leaders among your peers and fellow students across the U.S. We are trusting you to model the solution that we know will help us — wearing proper PPE, practicing social distancing on- and off-campus, getting tested regularly and tracking your symptoms. We are all in this together, and if we all respect these safety measure and take them seriously, we will be that much closer to ending this nightmare. We are all counting on you, because we are all counting on each other. Please familiarize yourself with MIT's new and improved centralized resource, MIT Now (now.mit.edu), where you can find the latest updates related to the Institute's Covid-19 response. Now more than ever, we should look to the the values that define our department for guidance as we continue to navigate these ongoing challenges: succeeding together, leading through excellence in research and education, and creating a more open, diverse, inclusive, and supportive community. Though we won't all be together on campus in the coming months, I'm looking forward to working with you as we explore new and exciting ways to foster our sense of community whether we are near or far. Daniel Hastings Department Head, MIT AeroAstro Cecil and Ida Green Education Professor Announcements Click the image below to enlarge. Action Required Under NAD Settlement MIT.edu Websites All MIT.edu websites must include the word “Accessibility” in the footer (at the bottom) of the site so that it appears on every page. The word should link to MIT’s central accessibility page, http://accessibility.mit.edu, by October 12, 2020. Content created or developed by faculty or staff as part of their MIT work that is posted on MIT’s public webpages (within MIT.edu domain) or public third-party platforms (e.g. YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) Content created or developed by a Sponsored Student Group as part of the group’s organizational mission that is posted to MIT’s public webpages or on public third-party platforms. Events that are live-streamed publicly by Institute Events.    Public Audio and Video Content Publicly-accessible audio and video content must be properly captioned.  Key Deadlines: September 12, 2020: Going forward, all video and audio content must be captioned as soon as it’s posted. July 12, 2021: All public audio and video content posted between Jan. 1, 2019-Sept. 11, 2020 must be captioned by this date. Details: Older existing content must be captioned within 7 days of a specific request. Recordings of livestreams must be captioned within 7 days after posting. Note: Automatically-generated captions on YouTube do not meet accessibility standards for accuracy, but they can be edited to mitigate this. Learn more.  MIT offers a list of captioning resources, included do-it-yourself methods and approved third-party vendors for captioning services, and it’s very easy to do. Learn more. Here is a recent example of an AeroAstro video that was captioned by Rev.com, one of the recommended vendors. Click the CC button at the bottom of the video player to activate the closed captions. Email Sara Cody, AeroAstro Communications Officer, with any questions. Save the Date: Celebrating Prof. Sheila Widnall’s Career Sept. 30 In honor of her retirement, AeroAstro is hosting a virtual celebration Prof. Sheila Widnall’s career and impact on the MIT community. Please save the date, Sept. 30 from 1-4 p.m. A formal invitation will follow. For Staff: Sign up for LEAD workshops LEAD, Learning Equity and Diversity, is a virtual, interactive workshop series lead by SPXCE staff via Zoom. Attend an individual session for targeted education on a specific topic, or register for all 6 LEAD sessions for a deeper dive into social justice issues. These workshops are specifically for staff who work directly with students. Learn more. Noteworthy News, Awards & Honors: Sheila Widnall is one of the 10 accomplished women chosen to represent Massachusetts in USA Today’s Women of the Century series. Learn more. Nancy Leveson and John Thomas held a virtual three-week workshop on their new STAMP accident causality model and the related hazard analysis and accident investigation tools. There were 2,291 people registered for the meeting from 73 countries. The attendees were from aviation, defense, aerospace, automotive, oil and gas, healthcare, rail, and just about every other safety-critical industry.    Zolti Spakovszky has been selected by the International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) as the 2021 recipient of the IGTI Scholar Award. IGTI gives this award biannually to a person “with a significant depth of knowledge in some aspect of gas turbine technology, who will write and present a learned and comprehensive paper at the ASME Turbo Expo”, the premier forum for dissemination of gas turbine engine research and technology. The recipient can be from industry, government, education, or private professional practice. Zolti will present his IGTI Scholar Lecture at the 2021 Turbo Expo next June. At the 34th Annual Small Satellite Conference, held virtually, grad student Rachel Morgan took home the top $10,000 prize in the 2020 Student Competition. Fellow StarLab students Amelia Gagnon, Maddie Schroeder, and Chris Womack came in fourth place in the competition. Jei Lee Freeman has been promoted to a Financial Coordinator II. Paul Serra was promoted from a postdoc to a Research Scientist. Art Samberg, a member the AeroAstro Visiting Committee, a generous supporter of our Department and a Life Member Emeritus of the MIT Corporation died of leukemia on July 14. Read his obituary in MIT News. Grad student Igor Kadota received a 2020 Graduate Student Extraordinary Teaching and Mentoring Award from the School of Engineering.  R. John Hansman received a Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award from the Federal Aviation Administration. The most prestigious honor issued by the FAA, it recognizes pilots certified under 14 CFR part 61 who "have exhibited professionalism, skill, and aviation expertise for at least 50 years while piloting aircraft." Danielle Wood and the Space Enabled research group have been hosting a bi-weekly series on the benefits of space technology for the Sustainable Development Goals. View the list of events. Danielle also gave a virtual plenary talk for Earth Science Information Partners Summer meeting entitled “Sustainability in Space and on Earth: Research Initiatives of the Space Enabled research group.” Grad student Elizabeth Qian received a 2020 Student Paper Prize from the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) for her paper on calculating sensitivity indices of engineering models. There is a blog with Q&A from all the prizewinners here, a compiled video of awardees here, and the student paper prize page is here. Grad student Matthew Moraguez came in first place in the recent MGMWERX Space Case Study Prize Challenge. His winning submission was a case study on orbital debris collision risks and mitigation strategies for spacecraft operations. The competition was sponsored by the DOD for the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, who sought academic research submissions about the space domain that they could use for classroom instruction for the Air Force and Space Force. Learn more. Recipients of Spot Appreciation Awards for the month of May include: Anthony Zolnik, Alvar Saenz-Otero, Joyce Light, Marshall Galbraith, Denise Phillips, Beata Shuster, Julie Finn, and Beth Marois. Learn more about recognizing your staff colleagues.  At the Robotics Science and Systems Conference, a Best Student Paper Award was given to V. Peretroukhin, M. Giamou, D. M. Rosen, W. N. Greene, N. Roy, and J. Kelly for their submission “A Continuous Representation of Belief over SO(3) for Robust Rotation Learning with Uncertainty.” Members of the Aerospace Controls Lab, including Parker Lusk, Xiaoyi Cai, Samir Wadhwania, Aleix Paris, Kaveh Fathian, and PI Jon How submitted a paper that was accepted to the 2020 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. In their paper “A Distributed Pipeline for Scalable, Deconflicted Formation Flying,” they describe how they developed a swarm of aerial vehicles to autonomously achieve a desired geometric formation specified by the operator. These vehicles don't require GPS, so the system works both indoors or outdoors, and has implications for use in exploration, monitoring, or mapping an environment using multiple vehicles in a formation, which would be faster and more efficient compared to a single vehicle. Watch the video. Special shoutout: Justin Francos (IS&T) “I just wanted you to know how much I appreciated Justin’s assistance by phone on Friday as the technician from Comcast was here to set up the new internet connection. Justin very helpfully answered my questions and I relayed his answers to the tech.” Fran Marrone, AeroAstro HQ

WBWT Update Daily work hours for the WBWT construction crew continue from 6 a.m.– 4 p.m. Some Saturday work may be expected. Construction is scheduled to continue through Spring 2021. Crews have been busy tying rebar and pouring concrete for the WBWT support pads, the connecting vestibule floor, the room to house the balance equipment, the observation decks and the elevator shaft. In early fall, we are scheduled to receive and install the new test section, a major milestone of the project. View a time lapse video of the project. If you have questions or concerns, email wbwt-info@mit.edu. Diversity, Innovation, & Inclusion (DI&I) DI&I Best Practices From MIT Sloan Management Review: A 5-Part framework for talking about racism at work Webinar: "BRAVE conversations about race" "In this webinar, diversity and inclusion experts Enrica N. Ruggs and Derek R. Avery discuss the importance of explicitly talking about race in the workplace and provide advice on how to begin productive conversations. They discuss factors to consider when planning these conversations, such as audience, timing, and purpose, as well as how to structure, facilitate, and navigate a conversation about race. They provide tips on how to have brave conversations that address tense aspects of race as a way to build competency around what inclusion really looks like in organizations." Successful ~*VIRTUAL*~ Thesis Defender Congratulations Dr. Igor Kadota! July 22, 2020 "Age-of-Information in Wireless Networks: Theory and Implementation" PI: Prof. Eytan Modiano Congratulations Dr. Elaheh Fata! July 29, 2020 "New Problems in Revenue Management, Theory and Applications" PI: Prof. Emilio Frazzoli Congratulations Dr. James Clark! August 7, 2020 "Space-Based Laser Guide Stars for Astronomical Observatories"  PI: Prof. Kerri Cahoy Congratulations Dr. Rajat Talak! August 12, 2020 "Information Exchange and Robust Learning Algorithms for Networked Autonomy" PI: Prof. Eytan Modiano Congratulations Dr. Guillaume Chossiere! August 19, 2020 "Atmospheric Impacts and Potential for Regulation of Current and Emerging Technologies in Transportation" PI: Prof. Steven Barrett 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 “Rather than telling the students it’s too hard, we just let them rip with new technologies and ideas. MIT students and faculty are not afraid to get hands-on, and we’ve been very successful at tackling tough problems in the real world—at minimal financial risk for industry partners.” R. John Hansman in a profile by the MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) Read more. Publications Corona Discharge in Wind for Electrically Isolated Electrodes C. Guerra-Garcia, N. C. Nguyen, T. Mouratidis, and M. Martinez-Sanchez JGR: Atmospheres, 2020 DOI: 10.1029/2020JD032908  Investigations of Positive Streamers as Quasi-Steady Structures Using Reduced Order Models C. Pavan, M. Martinez-Sanchez, and C. Guerra-Garcia Plasma Sources Science and Technology, 2020 DOI: 10.1088/1361-6595/aba863  Tara Venkatadri '22 Variations of porosity in intermediate-sized lunar impact basins Icarus  Read the full text. AeroAstro in the News Below are a few highlights of AeroAstro publications and media coverage: Maya Nasr NPR In-Person Education Or Risk Deportation: What’s Ahead For Foreign Students CBS Boston International Students Face Uncertain Future As Colleges Release Reopening Plans CBS Boston Ban On Work Visas Could Impact Cape Cod Businesses   Sara Seager New York Times These Books Transport You to a Galaxy Far, Far Away Brian Wardle MIT Spectrum AI takes research to the next level Peter Belobaba Wall Street Journal Coronavirus Has Upended Everything Airlines Know About Pricing Link | Full Text Danielle Wood Nature News How a small Arab nation built a Mars mission from scratch in six years Space News How the space sector is responding to the killing of George Floyd David Mindell Forbes Online Will Autonomous Vehicles Bring A Jobless Future? A New MIT Report Says Not So Fast

🛰 DeMi Launch 🛰

On July 13, members of the STAR Lab deployed DeMi, the Deformable Mirror Demonstration Mission, from the International Space Station after launching from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Feb. 15. DeMi is a 6U CubeSat that aims to demonstrate a MEMS deformable mirror in space so it can used to improve the contrast of coronagraph instruments on future space telescopes, which would allow us to perform direct imaging of exoplanets and understand more about their atmosphere and habitability. The DeMi payload was developed, built, integrated, and tested by the STAR Lab team, and communicates with Earth through a ground station located on the roof of the McNair Building (Building 37).

On July 13, DeMi was deployed from the ISS, leaving the Nanoracks deployer at 9:40 a.m. EDT. Astronaut Chris Cassidy, an MIT alum, captured photos of the deployment.

On July 20, the DeMi team established stable communication with the satellite for the first time. This screenshot shows a ground station pass that happened on August 8. The window on the left shows the radio spectrum, where the blue is background noise and the yellow areas are data being downlinked from DeMi.

Welcome to our new AeroAstro faculty members!

Zack Cordero Boeing Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Research Interests Additive Manufacturing, Propulsion Materials, Architectured Materials

Chuchu Fan Wilson Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Research interests Safe Autonomy, Cyber-Physical Systems, Formal methods, Control Theory, Embedded Systems

Richard K. Miller Jerome C. Hunsaker Visiting Professor of Aerospace Systems Read the full announcement.

Introducing the newest members of the AeroAstro Quaranteam!

Ronan Belcroft Hastings Breed: Dog | Sheltie Fun fact: Ronan was named after a character from Stargate Atlantis.  Shared by: Dan Hastings Text Link

Little One Light Breed: Cat | Domestic Short Hair Fun fact: Little One is an art critic — his favorite artist is Edward Hopper.  Shared by: Joyce Light Text Link

Mabel O'Conaill Breed: Dog | Pomeranian Fun fact: Mabel is a foodie, but is especially particular to wooden furniture and speaker wires.  Shared by: Brían O'Conaill Text Link

Ada Lovelace Balakrishnan Breed: Dog | Australian Shepherd/ German Shepherd/Lab Mix Fun fact: Ada's best friend is her human brother Nikhil Balakrishnan, and her second best friend is Nutter the guinea pig. Shared by: Hamsa Balakrishnan Text Link

Cooper Darmofal Breed: Dog | German Short-Haired Pointer Fun fact: Cooper is an avid outdoorsman who loves mountaineering and kayaking!  Shared by: Dave Darmofal Text Link

DeMi Breed: Cubesat | BCT XB1 Fun fact: DeMi may or may not have ingested a small Teflon washer that was dropped during assembly as FOD (foreign object debris) — it’s a mystery. 🔍 Shared by: STAR Lab Text Link

Department Highlights

Institute Professor Sheila Widnall was the 2019 recipient of the Daniel Guggenheim Medal in recognition of her outstanding contributions to aerodynamics through research, such as the identification of the Widnall Instability, as well as through education and public service including serving as Secretary of the U.S. Air Force. Established in 1929, the medal is sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), SAE International, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and the Vertical Flight Society (VFS). She was among the honorees featured in the virtual celebration

During the Faculty Community, Culture, and Inclusion Orientation Panel, the incoming graduate students were divided into breakout rooms and asked to answer the following question: when you think about inclusion, what three words come to mind? The word cloud (above) was generated from their responses.

Grad student Eric Hinterman has been working on MOXIE since 2016, when he started modeling the MOXIE software and hardware as part of his Master’s thesis. He has continued his work as a PhD candidate, where he is looking at the design and engineering challenges of scaling up the MOXIE technology to a full-size system that could support human life on a Mars mission in the future.

The Gas Turbine Laboratory ‘traditionally’ has a weekly social hour on Friday afternoons, with food and drinks for faculty, staff, students and visitors. We have continued the practice virtually, although with many comments about the inability to provide food. To remedy this, several weeks ago we had a community bread-baking conducted as a Zoom exercise. The goal was to make a Swiss Butterzopf – very typical Swiss braided bread, great for breakfast and relatively easy to make.   Led by Zolti Spakovszky, the participants did the dough preparation and braiding together, chatted a bit during the dough rise time, and then put these works of art in their respective ovens. There were seven baking participants, from two continents, plus a number of onlookers. Some results are shown in the attached, along with comments from the two judges, Simon and Felix Spakovszky, ages 9 and 7, respectively. A good time was had by all, both in doing and in eating. View the submissions & judges’ commentary. Special thanks to Ed Greitzer for submitting this story!

Each year, MIT’s Office of the First Year hosts Pre-Orientation Programs, or FPOP. Discover Aerospace (DA) is hosted by AeroAstro and usually offers an introduction to the aerospace field where participants design, build, and fly their own rockets. This year more than 70 Zoom participants joined us for a virtual program that included panels about career paths from aerospace industry leaders and current AeroAstro students who shared their experiences and information about opportunities available to MIT students!

Do you have highlights to include in future editions of the Monthly Roundup? Send them to aa-communications@mit.edu.

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