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A space instrument built by students, now at the edge of the solar system, celebrates a major milestone

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 14:10:08 +0000

A space instrument built by students, now at the edge of the solar system, celebrates a major milestone Jeff Zehnder Tue, 07/15/2025 - 08:10

In spring 2002, Chelsey Bryant Krug flew to Colorado in search of a job.

She had just enrolled as a graduate student in aerospace engineering sciences at the ɫ��ֱ��. She found the office of Michael McGrath, then the director of engineering at the highly regarded Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at ɫ��ֱ��. He wasn’t in, so Krug left her contact info on a sheet of bright pink paper.

“He told me later that he never would have seen the note if I hadn’t used that pink paper,” Krug said.

She didn’t know it at the time, but that pink note would shape the rest of Krug’s career. It would also send the engineer, or at least her handiwork, more than 5.5 billion miles from Earth.

From 2002 to 2004, Krug joined the all-student team that developed the Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter, a scientific instrument riding on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. The instrument, which has since traveled to the edge of the solar system, collects and analyzes tiny grains of dust flying through space. These grains hold vital clues to understanding this dark and mysterious part of space, and the forces that shaped Earth and neighboring planets billions of years ago.

To date, the Student Dust Counter (SDC) remains NASA’s only planetary science instrument designed and built almost entirely by students. Students still operate the instrument today.

They’re celebrating a big milestone: On July 14, 2015, New Horizons completed its now-famous flyby of Pluto, capturing images of the dwarf planet in astonishing detail. To mark the 10th anniversary of the event, Krug and other current and former LASP students are reflecting on their experiences.

“What an amazing opportunity,” said Krug, who still works at LASP as the institute’s aerospace engineering production manager. “I got to touch and build the flight hardware. That doesn’t happen often.”

Over the years, more than 30 undergraduate and graduate students have worked on the Student Dust Counter. They designed its electronics, assembled its 14 dust detectors, and even managed its budget. Many of these researchers have gone on to become leading professionals at NASA, universities and aerospace companies across the country.

This historic image of Pluto from 2015 reveals a heart-shaped plain on the dwarf planet's surface known as Tombaugh Regio. (Credit: NASA)

The Student Dust Counter was named for Venetia Burney Phair, who, in 1930 at 11-years-old, suggested the name for the newly discovered Pluto. Mihály Horányi met Phair in 2006. (Credit: LASP)

It's a testament to LASP’s legacy of training the country’s next generation of space scientists and engineers, said physicist Mihály Horányi. He has served as the instrument’s principal investigator for more than two decades, overseeing the student teams that worked on the dust counter.

“These students were assigned to something unimaginable,” said Horányi, professor of physics and a LASP researcher. “This instrument has traveled more than 60 times farther from the sun than Earth, and students are in charge of making it work.”

Earth’s sandbox

Jamey Szalay was one of those students in charge of making the dust counter work. From 2011 to 2015, he served as the student lead for the instrument, the third in a series of eight graduate students who have held that title at LASP.

He also sat in an operations room at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland when the mission sent home its first images of Pluto. The mission is led by Alan Stern at the Southwest Research Institute in ɫ��ֱ��, Colorado, and managed by NASA and APL.

“We were delightfully surprised at how complicated Pluto was,” said Szalay, now a research scholar at Princeton University. “It has wonderfully diverse terrain.”

Tiny grains of dust, many too small to see with the naked eye, pervade the solar system. These grains of dust open a window to an epoch in the history of our cosmic neighborhood billions of years ago. At the time, a giant disk of dust rich in elements like carbon and silicon circled our young sun. Over time, that matter condensed to form planetary bodies like Earth and Pluto. But to study what’s left of the dust, scientists have to collect these particles directly.

“There’s still a lot that we can learn about our own sandbox, our own solar system’s dust disk,” Szalay said. “The SDC is the only dust instrument that has ever measured the outer reaches of our solar system.”

After soaring by Pluto in 2015, the spacecraft pressed deeper into a region of the solar system known as the Kuiper Belt. This expanse of space is home to icy objects like Arrokoth, a snowman-shaped world that is about 19 miles tall.

Drawing on data from the Student Dust Counter, Szalay, Horányi and colleagues discovered that the Kuiper Belt contains several times more dust than scientists predicted. One theory suggests that these grains of dust may be made of different materials than expected.

“Not a lot of folks get to work on space instrumentation in general. Those that do often have to wait until much later in their career,” Szalay said. “To have that hands-on capability in grad school was an electric jump-start to my career.”

Students at work

The Student Dust Counter team poses for a photo in 2003. (Credit: LASP)

Students pose with the Student Dust Counter instrument in a clean room. (Credit: LASP)

Chelsey Krug works on tests of the Student Dust Counter at a dust accelerator in Heidelberg, Germany, in 2003. (Credit: LASP)

LASP students Jamey Szalay, left, and Marcus Piquette, right, give interviews to the media during the encounter with Pluto in 2015. (Credit: LASP)

In 2015, current and former LASP students along with Alan Stern, second from left, and Mihály Horányi, middle, flash the number nine for Pluto. (Credit: LASP)

Technicians add a plate bearing the Ralphie logo onto the IDEX instrument. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/ɫ��ֱ��)

LASP’s dusty legacy

The Student Dust Counter was the first instrument LASP built to collect dust in space, but it wasn’t the last. Learn about the instruments that followed in its footsteps.

Cosmic Dust Experiment (CDE)

CDE was one of three instruments aboard the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft, which launched in 2007 and operated until 2023. The instrument monitored how dust from space entered Earth's atmosphere.

Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX)

LDEX sat on the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft, which intentionally crashed into Earth's moon in 2014. The instrument studied dust in the moon’s extremely thin atmosphere.

Europa SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA)

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission launched for Jupiter’s icy moon Europa in 2024 and will arrive in 2031. The spacecraft carries the bucket-shaped SUDA, which will analyze the contents of icy particles soaring above the moon’s surface.

Interstellar Dust Experiment (IDEX)

IDEX is set to launch in 2025 aboard the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe. The instrument will collect stardust, or the particles entering Earth’s solar system from the galaxy beyond.

Cold space

To make those kinds of jump starts a reality, Krug and the other students who built the Student Dust Counter had to get creative.

The instrument, which is about the size of a large briefcase, sits on the front of the spacecraft and includes 14 detectors about the size of a dollar bill. Each detector is made up of a metal base coated in the same material used in kitchen Saran Wrap. Every time a tiny grain of dust pings one of the detectors, the device releases a small electric current.

Horányi added that NASA didn’t go easy on the student team. Krug and her colleagues had to meet the same standards and testing requirements as with any other space instrument. The students, for example, wanted to be sure their detectors could survive in the frigid stretches of space beyond Pluto. To do that, they dunked their designs directly into liquid nitrogen.

“The instrument works as well today as it did on day one, almost 20 years after launch,” Horányi said.

In her current role at LASP, Krug works with ɫ��ֱ��’s latest crop of undergraduate and graduate students. She tries to pass on the lessons she learned from the Student Dust Counter.

“I always tell students to find a research opportunity, even if it’s just helping a professor with data entry,” she said. “You have to build up your resume to be considered for jobs in the future.”

Late-night calls

Alex Doner, a graduate student in physics at ɫ��ֱ��, is the eighth lead for the Student Dust Counter and is currently training his successor.

The job comes with a lot of sleepless nights. In his role, Doner sends the instrument commands, makes sure it’s working as expected, and downloads and analyzes its data about once a month. If anything goes wrong, he’s the first person NASA calls.

It’s an experience few graduate students ever get.

“We’re not just managing an experiment and writing a paper,” Doner said. “It’s learning a complex scientific system, mastering it, making it our own and then teaching it to another graduate student. It’s a whole life cycle of science.”

Blair Schulze, a graduate student in physics who will take over from Doner next year, sees her experiences on the dust counter setting her up for success in her future career.

“Learning these skills as a student is a huge advantage after graduation when going into any future career in spacecraft or space sciences,” she said.

The current and former students emphasize that, while students led the project, the Student Dust Counter wouldn’t be possible without Horányi’s patient teaching and leadership.

Doner added that one of his favorite parts of the job comes up during his regular calls with the New Horizons team. At the end of the call, the groups overseeing the spacecraft’s five scientific instruments confirm that their equipment is functioning as it should. For the graduate student, it still feels like something out of a Hollywood space movie.

“Every instrument says it’s a ‘go’ or a ‘no-go.’ I get to say ‘SDC is go’ every two weeks,” Doner said. “It’s always just a little bit inspiring.”

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Robots could one day crawl on the moon. These undergrads are laying the groundwork

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 20:00:40 +0000

Robots could one day crawl on the moon. These undergrads are laying the groundwork Jeff Zehnder Thu, 07/03/2025 - 14:00

The future of moon exploration may be rolling around a non-descript office on the ɫ��ֱ�� campus.

Here, a robot about as wide as a large pizza scoots forward on three wheels. It uses an arm with a claw at one end to pick up a plastic block from the floor, then set it back down.

To be sure, this windowless office, complete with gray carpeting, is nothing like the moon. And the robot, nicknamed “Armstrong,” wouldn’t last a minute on its frigid surface.

But the scene represents a new vision for space exploration—one in which fleets of robots working in tandem with people crawl across the lunar landscape, building scientific observatories or even human habitats.

Xavier O’Keefe operates the robot from a room down the hall. He wears virtual reality goggles that allow him to see through a camera mounted on top of Armstrong.

“It’s impressively immersive,” said O’Keefe, who earned his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering sciences from ɫ��ֱ�� this spring. “The first couple of times I used the VR, the robot was sitting in the corner, and it was really weird to see myself using it.”

He’s part of a team of current and former undergraduate students tackling a tricky question: How can humans on Earth get the training they need to operate robots on the hazardous terrain of the lunar surface? On the moon, gravity is only about one-sixth as strong as it is on our planet. The landscape is pockmarked with craters, some cast in permanent darkness.

In a new study, O’Keefe and fellow ɫ��ֱ�� alumni Katy McCutchan and Alexis Muniz report that “digital twins,” or hyper-realistic virtual reality environments, could provide a useful proxy for the moon—giving people a chance to get the hang of driving robots without risking damage to multi-million-dollar equipment.

The study is funded by NASA and the Colorado company Lunar Outpost. It is part of a larger research effort led by Jack Burns, astrophysics professor emeritus in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) and the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA).

The Armstrong robot, top, and its digital twin, bottom. (Credit: Network for Exploration and Space Science)

“There was a lot of room to make mistakes with Armstrong since it wasn’t a million-dollar piece of hardware going to space,” said McCutchan, who earned her master’s degree in aerospace engineering sciences from ɫ��ֱ�� in 2025. “It was a good sandbox to mess around in.”

Digital twin

For Burns, a co-author of the study, Armstrong and its VR digital twin represent a big leap forward, despite the robot’s humble appearance. Burns is part of a team that has received a grant from NASA to design a futuristic scientific observatory on the moon called FarView—which would be made up of a web of 100,000 antennas stretching over roughly 77 square miles of the lunar surface. Daniel Szafir of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill was also a co-author of the new study.

“Unlike the Apollo program where human astronauts did all the heavy lifting on the moon, NASA’s 21st century Artemis Program will combine astronauts and robotic rovers working in tandem,” Burns said. “Our efforts at ɫ��ֱ�� are intended to make lunar robots more efficient and recoverable from errors, so precious astronaut time on the lunar surface will be better utilized.”

The space group’s first hurdle: Creating a digital twin for Armstrong to roam around in. To do that, the researchers began by creating a digital replica of their office in a video game engine called Unity—right down to the beige walls and drab carpet.

“We had to get the digital twin as close to real thing as possible,” said O’Keefe, who’s now a master’s student in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at ɫ��ֱ��. “For example, we timed how fast the robot moved over one yard. Then we did the same test in the virtual environment and got the robot’s speed to be the same.”

Next, the team ran an experiment. In 2023 and 2024, they recruited 24 human participants to operate Armstrong while sitting in a room down the hall. Donning VR goggles, the subjects took the robot through a simple task: They picked up and adjusted a plastic block that represented one of the antennas in FarView.

Half of the participants, however, got a head start. They first practiced the same task in the digital version of the office.

Humans who got the chance to operate Armstrong’s digital twin before driving the real thing completed the task roughly 28% faster than participants who only got the chance to operate the physical robot. They also reported that they felt less stress during the task.

“That’s what is really exciting about this—you’re able to simulate everything in the environment, from the shadows to the texture of the dirt, and then train operators on conditions that are as close to real as possible,” O’Keefe said. “That way, once you get to the moon, you have a higher chance of success.”

ɫ��ֱ�� researchers are working with the company Lunar Outpost to develop a digital twin of a rover on the surface of the moon. (Credit: Nico Goda/ɫ��ֱ��)

Real-world experience

McCutchan, who also joined the project as an undergrad, added that the study gave her and her fellow students a grounding in how research works in the real world.

For example, when the researchers began the experiment, they discovered that the human subjects kept making the same mistake. When they went to pick up the fake antennas with Armstrong, they often flipped the blocks over by accident. The group hadn’t anticipated that.

“Whenever you get people involved, they do things in ways you wouldn’t expect them to,” said McCutchan, who recently started work as a mechanical solutions test engineer at BAE Systems, an aerospace company.

Today, Burns’ team is moving onto a new goal: They’re recreating the much more complex environment of the lunar surface. The researchers are working with the Colorado-based company Lunar Outpost to build a digital twin of a rover on the moon in the same game engine. The hardest part, O’Keefe said, is getting the lunar dust just right.

“The rover will kick up dust with its wheels as it drives, and that could possibly block sensors or cameras,” O’Keefe said. “But it’s really hard to know exactly how dust moves on the moon because you can’t just go outside and measure it.”

For now, he is happy being a part of the future of lunar exploration, albeit from the safety of campus.

“It’s awesome to be part of this, even if it is a small part of getting people on the moon.”

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Three PhD students earn top National Science Foundation fellowship

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 19:52:39 +0000

Three PhD students earn top National Science Foundation fellowship Jeff Zehnder Mon, 06/16/2025 - 13:52

Jeff Zehnder

Three aerospace graduate students have earned prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program awards.

Annalise Cabra, Thomas Clark, and Asa O'Neal are 2025 recipients of the NSF GRFP awards, which recognize and support outstanding grad students from across the country in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields who are pursuing research-based master’s or doctoral degree.

Awardees receive a $37,000 annual stipend and cost of education allowance for the next three years as well as professional development opportunities.

Find out about their research below:

Annalise Cabra

Advisors: Jim Nabity and Xu Wang
Labs: Bioastronautics Laboratory and the Institute for Modeling Plasmas, Atmospheres, and Cosmic Dust (IMPACT)

Undergraduate Major: Physics, ɫ��ֱ��

My research will focus on the handling of lunar dust to support space exploration, specifically methods for dust mitigation and/or in-situ resource utilization. The dust on the lunar surface gets electrically charged from the solar wind and will mobilize or be lofted, causing it to adhere to various materials like spacesuits or spacecrafts with instruments, solar panels, etc. This then becomes a hazard when trying to carry out space exploration. I will focus on strategies to mitigate this.

I am also interested in in-situ resource utilization and the extraction of local resources on the moon. These steps are crucial for making long-duration space missions more sustainable and affordable by minimizing the need to transport materials from Earth. I will focus on advancing methods for extracting volatiles from the lunar regolith like oxygen to produce materials like propellant or habitats.

Thomas Clark

Advisor: Dan Scheeres
Lab: Celestial and Spaceflight Mechanics Lab

Undergraduate Major: Physics, California Institute of Technology

I am using machine learning and artificial intelligence to expand our capabilities for autonomous mission design near the moon. In cislunar space, the space surrounding the moon, many complex trajectories are available to mission designers including periodic orbits, quasi-periodic orbits, and invariant manifolds. However, these are difficult to compute, and we currently have no easy method to search these trajectories efficiently. I am developing databases using deep neural networks which allow us to search over continuous families of precomputed trajectories for use in mission design and eventually to enable autonomous motion planning in cislunar space.

Asa O'Neal

Advisor: Iain Boyd
Lab: Nonequilibrium Gas & Plasma Dynamics Laboratory

Undergraduate Major: Mechanical Engineering & Physics, University of Kentucky

My research will focus on modeling air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP) systems for spacecraft operating in very low Earth orbit (VLEO). This research will support the development of sustainable, long-duration VLEO missions by enabling in-situ propellant collection and reducing reliance on onboard fuel.

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PhD student earns prestigious 2025 Draper Fellowship

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 16:18:43 +0000

PhD student earns prestigious 2025 Draper Fellowship Jeff Zehnder Thu, 06/12/2025 - 10:18

Jeff Zehnder

Nicole Rote has earned a major fellowship from Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Draper Laboratories.

Rote, a PhD student in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the ɫ��ֱ��, has been named a 2025 Draper Scholar.

Scholars in the program receive funding support and are paired with a member of the Draper's technical staff while they conduct research in fields of mutual interest.

Rote's work will focus on modeling and predicting pilot spatial disorientation.

"I initially became interested in spatial disorientation research while working with pilots as a flight test engineer. Spatial disorientation has severe consequences, and improved prediction can enable life-saving countermeasures," Rote said.

Rote earned her bachelor's in mechanical engineering from Purdue University. After graduating, she worked at Boeing Research & Technology in Loads and Dynamics analysis and testing, supporting efforts from F/A-18 flight testing to spacecraft vibration and shock testing.

She started her PhD at ɫ��ֱ�� in 2023.

This is not Rote's first major fellowship. She is also a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program award.

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Student-designed astronaut balance system wins aerospace competition

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 17:43:58 +0000

Student-designed astronaut balance system wins aerospace competition Jeff Zehnder Mon, 06/09/2025 - 11:43

Jeff Zehnder

A team of 13 engineering seniors earned first place in a national aeronautics student paper competition for their capstone design project.

Team ASTRA (Astronaut Stability Training Response Apparatus) spent nine months analyzing, designing, and building a proof-of-concept reactive balance board training system to assist astronauts in maintaining their sense of position and movement while in space to improve recovery time when they return to Earth.

“It’s about being able to tell where you are in relation to your own body,” said Sweta Alla, the team’s project manager. “That’s knowing when to step, when to catch yourself. It tends to go away in microgravity. Our goal is to enhance that on Earth to help improve it in space.”

The team won the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Region V student paper competition, an annual event that brings together student design teams from 10 states and six Canadian provinces to showcase their capstone projects.

It was an exciting recognition that followed two semesters of effort.

“We did a lot of theoretical work, building out CAD models, cost benefit analyses, risk matrices, how the design would look and how we can build it to function,” Alla said. “The first few weeks were just sitting with the idea and design.”

The project design and build process included all of the ups and downs that are part of any engineering undertaking.

“We had a lot of setbacks and hurdles we had to get through, which strengthened our understanding of how engineering really works,” said Chloe Zentner, the team’s CFO. “A major issue was getting our motors. It was supposed to be two weeks for shipping, but it ended up being almost two months. That set a lot of our testing plans and timelines back.”

To complete the project, the team combined off-the-shelf and custom electronic components, requiring them to work in four unique programming languages: C#, C++, Python, and Dragon Ruby.

“We had to get all of the components to talk to each other, and the motors were supposed to come with software that was basically plug and play. They did not,” said Alia Feltes-DeYapp, systems engineering lead.

Their ultimate design was a structure a person could stand inside that actively monitors their center of balance and, based on movement, provides countervailing forces to approximate the experience of gravity on Earth. The project also incorporates an easy-to-understand gaming interface.

“It really was an amazing experience to get to do something for the entire year,” Feltes-DeYapp said. “We used our hands and built something from start to finish.”

As first place finishers at AIAA Region V, the team is qualified to compete in the upcoming AIAA International SciTech Forum and Exposition, slated for Jan. 2026

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Flickr Album: 2025 Smead Aerospace Graduation Ceremony

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 09 May 2025 20:04:10 +0000

Flickr Album: 2025 Smead Aerospace Graduation Ceremony Jeff Zehnder Fri, 05/09/2025 - 14:04

The Smead Aerospace Class of 2025 celebrated completion of the degrees during a graduation ceremony May 8 at the CU Events Center.

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Flickr Album: 2025 Graduate Reception and PhD Recognition Ceremony

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 09 May 2025 20:01:43 +0000

Flickr Album: 2025 Graduate Reception and PhD Recognition Ceremony Jeff Zehnder Fri, 05/09/2025 - 14:01

Smead Aerospace students, friends, and family celebrated graduation May 8 with a special reception at the Aerospace Building.

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Aerospace 2025 Graduation Awards

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 09 May 2025 18:15:01 +0000

Aerospace 2025 Graduation Awards Jeff Zehnder Fri, 05/09/2025 - 12:15

Jeff Zehnder

Flickr Album: 2025 Senior Design Awards Ceremony

Congratulations to the Smead Aerospace Class of 2025! As part of our graduation week ceremonies, we are recognizing outstanding students and teams at the undergraduate and graduate level for special achievements.

Most Outstanding Senior and Chancellor's Recognition Award (4.0 GPA)

Madison Lin

CU Engineering Award for Academic Engagement

Ivy Hill

CU Engineering Award for Perseverance

Teegan Loretta Oatley

Graduate Award for Teaching

Alyxis Ellington

Graduate Award for Professional Service

Taylor Lonner

Graduate Award for Research

Julian Hammerl

Senior Design Team Awards

Outstanding Team: LEONIDS
- Adrian Bryant, Quinten Krikava, Nicole Rogers, Polly Fitton, Tyler Renken, Murilo Tibana, Savar Rodine, Mark Turner, Andrew Vo, Shane Billingsley, Sam Allen, Daniel Mascarenas, Victoria Madden
Outstanding Professionalism: BLERP
- Sophia Orlandella, Ben Martin, Rahul Sampangiramiah, Jacob Greco, Regan Craig, Alex Putnam, Ian Holm, Zach Malcomson, Ben DeBlasio, Jordan Richardson, Alexander Keller, Nikolas Welch
Outstanding Communication: WAFFLE
- Matt Leidli, Bryce Pfuetze, Nathan Whittenburg, Ariana Bower, Vivian Young, Mikayla Cervantes, David McGraw, Summer McCluskey, Jordan Mosher, Nicholas Vialpando, Zachary McGuinn, Zachary Selleck, Zach Mund, Chris Franklin
Outstanding Creativity: TOMATOSOUPS
- Oliver Jaeckli, Paige Catena, John Dallin, Eli Greene, Berenger Hickey, Abbitt Holland, Madison Lin, Connor McEniry, Aadi Pore, Logan Skulley, Will Steinfort, Philip Szeremeta, Tiannie Zhao
Outstanding Modeling / Simulation: HAWK
- Sean Laufenberg, Matt Turner, Nathan Malyszek, Jackson Clark, Akram Alribi, Fahad Alawadhi, Nicole Crouse, Alex Kistamma, Bo Iacobbo, Chase Malanowski, Saikiran Chandramouli, Sebastian Escobar
Outstanding Prototype: OMEGA
- Nikhita Sathiyan, Drew Barbec, Milo Casey, Trevor Castano,Logan Deison, Ethan Domagala, Felix Evrard, Gabe Law, Jacob Lei, Eric Meyer, Teegan Oatley, Anthony Tucciarone, Nick Young

Senior Design Individual Awards

Outstanding Program Manager

Sophia Orlandella
Matthew Ramos

Outstanding Systems Engineer

Abbey Hicks
Polly Fitton

Outstanding CFO

Jacob Greco

Technical Leadership: Software

Winnie Regan
John Dallin

Technical Leadership: Electrical

Connor Larson
Liza Graybill

Technical Leadership: Mechanical / Manufacturing

Dana Gutierrez
Jordan Mosher

Technical Leadership: Systems and Testing

Alexandra Putman
Skyler Puckett

Outstanding Contributor Award

Kyle Goodall
Darius Mirhosseini
Kasey Connors
Teo Schollmaier
Adrian Northcutt
Peter Johnson
Anvie Gowrishankar
Taylor Bata
Sandra Sarinana

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Graduating senior and Academic Engagement Award honoree

Jeff Zehnder — Wed, 07 May 2025 20:18:31 +0000

Graduating senior and Academic Engagement Award honoree Jeff Zehnder Wed, 05/07/2025 - 14:18

Ivy Hill is a graduating senior in aerospace engineering sciences and a 2025 recipient of a Academic Engagement Award from the College of Engineering and Applied Science.

Below, Hill reflects on her time at ɫ��ֱ�� and her next steps as an engineering professional.

What are your post-graduation plans?

After graduating I will be working for an aerospace startup called Constanellis, where I will be working as a satellite software developer.

What is your favorite memory from your time at ɫ��ֱ��?

My favorite memory from ɫ��ֱ�� will be my friends. I have met many amazing people here who have loved and supported me through difficult times.

What accomplishment are you most proud of, either academically or personally?

I am proud of myself for making it through everything. Over the last four years I have been taking numerous classes, completing endless homeworks, begging for essay extensions, working continuous jobs. I have gone through personal struggles, health struggles, social struggles, family struggles. I have gone through the moments where everything seems pointless, and now I get to see moments where everything comes together. Not only have I persisted through these last four years, but I have meaningfully improved my life in spite of it. Anyone and everyone who makes it through it all deserves to congratulate and honor themselves.

When did you feel like you hit your stride or feel like you were “officially” an engineer.

I knew I hit my stride as an engineer when I found myself enjoying my work. I was working on a piece of software and debugging for hours; I found the whole process meditative, relaxing, and fulfilling. Like solving a puzzle. That was the moment I knew I was doing the right thing for my degree.

What is your biggest piece of advice for incoming engineering students?

My biggest piece of advice is to choose happiness. Some choices are scary, and we feel like we can push them off to a later time or ignore them. And while it is never too late to make a choice, the best time is now. If you make a choice believing it will improve your life, you will find regret impossible.

What experiences or qualities do you think led to you receiving this award?

I am a helpful person who is great at showing my thought process. I am great at helping fellow students work through problems, and through my assistance to others I have built a strong reputation.

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CUriosity: A 50-year-old Soviet spacecraft will soon crash to Earth. Why, and where will it land?

Jeff Zehnder — Wed, 07 May 2025 19:03:37 +0000

CUriosity: A 50-year-old Soviet spacecraft will soon crash to Earth. Why, and where will it land? Jeff Zehnder Wed, 05/07/2025 - 13:03

Later this week, a piece of Cold War space history is expected to return to Earth—although where it will land remains unclear.

Scientists estimate that Kosmos 482, a Soviet spacecraft that launched from Earth in 1972 with plans to land on Venus, will reenter Earth’s atmosphere sometime this weekend. The spacecraft, which was fortified to withstand the extreme conditions at the surface of Venus, will likely reach Earth’s surface intact.

Don’t panic: The odds that this relic will land in a populated area are very low, said Marcin Pilinski, a research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the ɫ��ֱ��.

The Kosmos 482 Venus lander. (Credit: NASA)

“It’s an infinitesimally small number,” Pilinski said. “It will very likely land in the ocean.”

He’s keeping a close eye. Pilinski is part of a team of scientists that has tracked Kosmos 482 as it orbited Earth. They include Shaylah Mutschler, director of the space weather division for the company Space Environment Technologies, and Charles Constant, a doctoral student at University College London.

The researchers say that the case of Kosmos 482 shows why it’s so important for scientists to get a handle on the space environment around Earth—understanding how spacecraft orbit the planet, interact with its wispy upper atmosphere and, in some cases, fall back down.

It’s a story five decades in the making: Kosmos 482 set out for Venus in March 1972, but, due to an unknown error with its rockets, never made it far. Today, it orbits the planet in what scientists call an “eccentric” orbit, similar in shape to a stretched-out rubber band. Because of Cold War secrecy, the researchers aren’t sure how big the spacecraft is. But estimates suggest it’s more than meter (almost 3.5 feet) wide and weighs about 495 kilograms (1,090 pounds).

“It was supposed to escape the sphere of influence of Earth,” said Mutschler, who earned her doctorate in aerospace engineering sciences from ɫ��ֱ�� in 2022. “It didn’t quite do enough to get out.”

Previously in CUriosity

CUriosity: Why, and how, do ants walk in a perfect line?

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And it’s been slowing down ever since. Mutschler explained that, as Kosmos 482 orbited Earth, it sliced through the upper parts of the atmosphere, experiencing drag much like an airplane flying against the wind. Scientists like her even track tiny changes in the way the spacecraft moves past Earth to improve their simulations, or models, of the conditions in that region of space.

But predicting where the spacecraft will crash is more difficult. In part, that’s because this environment, known as low-Earth orbit, can change a lot. During events called solar storms, for example, the sun releases intense bursts of energy that can cause our planet’s atmosphere to inflate like a balloon. Weather near Earth’s surface can also send disturbances upwards, creating waves and ripples in low-Earth orbit. Pilinski is part of a group at ɫ��ֱ�� called the Space Weather Technology Research and Education Center (SWx TREC). The center seeks to study the weather in space to better protect satellites in orbit around Earth.

“People who monitor asteroids to see if they will potentially impact Earth actually have an easier job,” Pilinski said. “Those objects would enter at a really steep angle. They’re not skimming part of the atmosphere for days or weeks like this spacecraft.”

Constant noted that understanding space weather is critical as companies across the globe launch more satellites into orbit.

“One collision could spell disaster for everyone else,” he said. “You’d get this cloud of debris flying around, causing other potential collisions—what we call a ‘Kessler event.’”

As for Kosmos 482, Mutschler said the researchers may be able to narrow down their estimates of where the spacecraft will crash about a day ahead of time.

“About a day out, we should know with a reasonable amount of certainty whether there’s going to be a solar storm affecting Earth,” Mutschler said, “or if the atmospheric conditions are going to continue to be quiet.”

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A space instrument built by students, now at the edge of the solar system, celebrates a major milestone

Earth’s sandbox

Cold space

Late-night calls

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Robots could one day crawl on the moon. These undergrads are laying the groundwork

Digital twin

Real-world experience

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Three PhD students earn top National Science Foundation fellowship

Annalise Cabra

Thomas Clark

Asa O'Neal

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PhD student earns prestigious 2025 Draper Fellowship

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Student-designed astronaut balance system wins aerospace competition

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Flickr Album: 2025 Smead Aerospace Graduation Ceremony

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Flickr Album: 2025 Graduate Reception and PhD Recognition Ceremony

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Aerospace 2025 Graduation Awards

Most Outstanding Senior and Chancellor's Recognition Award (4.0 GPA)

CU Engineering Award for Academic Engagement

CU Engineering Award for Perseverance

Graduate Award for Teaching

Graduate Award for Professional Service

Graduate Award for Research

Senior Design Team Awards

Senior Design Individual Awards

Outstanding Program Manager

Outstanding Systems Engineer

Outstanding CFO

Technical Leadership: Software

Technical Leadership: Electrical

Technical Leadership: Mechanical / Manufacturing

Technical Leadership: Systems and Testing

Outstanding Contributor Award

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Graduating senior and Academic Engagement Award honoree

What are your post-graduation plans?

What is your favorite memory from your time at ɫ�����ֱ��?

What accomplishment are you most proud of, either academically or personally?

When did you feel like you hit your stride or feel like you were “officially” an engineer.

What is your biggest piece of advice for incoming engineering students?

What experiences or qualities do you think led to you receiving this award?

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CUriosity: A 50-year-old Soviet spacecraft will soon crash to Earth. Why, and where will it land?

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What is your favorite memory from your time at ɫ��ֱ��?