Grad Profile

PhD student advancing medical research for life on Earth and in space

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 14:27:42 +0000

PhD student advancing medical research for life on Earth and in space Jeff Zehnder Tue, 07/15/2025 - 08:27

Jeff Zehnder

Callie Wynn standing by the bioastronautics
tilt translation sled.

Callie Wynn is studying medical ailments for astronauts that also have implications for millions of people here on Earth.

A second-year aerospace PhD student at the ɫ��ֱ��, Wynn is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

The program provides three years of funding toward her PhD as well as professional development opportunities. The honor is a major achievement for any student, but especially so for Wynn, who did not originally see herself pursuing an advanced degree in aerospace.

“This wasn’t the plan,” Wynn said. “My undergrad was in kinesiology and I was going into physical therapy school, but I did some job shadowing and realized it wasn’t for me.”

She started pursuing old interests and joined an aerospace club at her undergraduate alma mater: Texas A&M University. It opened a doorway that changed her future.

“I found out about bioastronautics and in that moment realized, ‘This is it.’ It had the medical background I already had and the spaceflight applications that made me excited to get up and go to work,” she said.

She enrolled at ɫ��ֱ�� for a PhD and quickly became part of a project on Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a fainting disorder that affects over one million people in the United States. Astronauts returning to Earth also suffer from similar physiological challenges.

“I’ve been able to do quite a bit of research with human subjects,” Wynn said. “POTS is related to blood flow in the body. The orthostatic intolerance people experience is similar to what astronauts go through when they come back to Earth. They’re having problems with their cardiovascular system.”

Wynn hopes to build on that research through exploration of another ailment called Spaceflight-Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome (SANS). It is a condition that causes vision changes in microgravity due to fluid shifts in the body. It affects 70 percent of astronauts.

“While we want to understand what happens with intracranial pressure in space, we just don’t have the ability to do so directly. I’m looking for countermeasures to mitigate this fluid shift,” Wynn said.

SANS is specific to astronauts, but the research has potential applications for conditions here on Earth that involve fluid buildup in the brain, a situation that impacts Wynn personally.

“Seven years ago, I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension; an excess of spinal fluid build up in my brain. It puts pressure on the eyes and can lead to vision loss. Realizing how similar my condition is to SANS was a motivator for my research. I’m able to sit in research meetings and know what it’s like to have an intracranial monitor or a lumbar puncture,” Wynn said.

From the outside, (this research) can look like magic, but as you learn it, it’s not magic. It’s science, technology, and engineering.”

Smead Aerospace has been engaged in SANS research previously as part of the 2024 Polaris Dawn mission, where crewmembers wore special contact lenses that monitored intraocular pressure. That flight was just under five days. Wynn hopes to extend the research on future low Earth orbit missions to build a better understanding of SANS for longer duration flights, like to Mars.

“If we are sending people to planetary surfaces, to Mars, that transit time becomes much longer. You’re going to have more deconditioning of the brain, of the eyes. What amount of vision loss is expected and is okay? We need to develop better models and new ways to treat the condition,” Wynn said.

As she conducts research and advances her education as a PhD student, Wynn is excited at the potential for a future career and contributions to human spaceflight.

“These are projects I want to be on because I believe in this research so strongly,” Wynn said. “From the outside, it can look like magic, but as you learn it, it’s not magic. It’s science, technology, and engineering.”

Callie Wynn is studying medical ailments for astronauts that also have implications for millions of people here on Earth. A second-year aerospace PhD student at the...

Off

Traditional

White

Enhancing orbital safety with better space weather predictions

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 19:55:23 +0000

Enhancing orbital safety with better space weather predictions Jeff Zehnder Thu, 07/10/2025 - 13:55

Jeff Zehnder

Header Image: Anant Telikicherla in a clean room holding the instrument next to a sounding rocket body.
Above: Telikicherla enjoying the great outdoors.

Anant Telikicherla is developing new instrumentation for an upcoming sub-orbital rocket flight.

Surrounded by racks of electronics equipment, tools, and pieces of an aluminum rocket body – the laboratory could be mistaken for a mad scientist’s lair – Telikicherla is working on an instrument he hopes can help provide advance warnings for solar flares.

“These flares are one of the most powerful explosions in the solar system,” said Telikicherla, a PhD student in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the ɫ��ֱ��. “Flares release an insane amount of energy that can reach Earth in eight minutes and large eruptive flares are often associated with energetic particle events that are a radiation risk to astronauts and can be really damaging to satellites.”

As a student, Telikicherla is co-advised by two leading researchers, Tom Woods, a senior research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and Bob Marshall, an associate professor in aerospace.

Flare prediction is an active area of research around the world, and Telikicherla is hopeful the instrument he and Woods have been developing could eventually provide 10-15 minutes advance warning of flares. It is a short period of time, but any additional notice would be beneficial for space weather operations.

The basis of the instrument, called the Solar Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph and High Energy Imager (SEUSHI), derives from a paper Telikicherla published on solar flare onsets in The Astrophysical Journal. SEUSHI is slated to fly next spring aboard a sounding rocket.

Sounding rockets are sub-orbital flights that soar to the edge of space and offer engineers and scientists an opportunity to conduct short duration experiments for a much lower cost than those on full size rockets.

“Our group tries to build new instruments to better understand the sun, and hopefully this flight demonstrates the technology and then we’ll propose it as a long-term project aboard a future small satellite,” Telikicherla said.

A native of Dehli in India, Telikicherla has been fascinated by space since a young age. He earned his bachelor’s at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, a university run by India’s national space agency, and then worked at the Indian Space Research Organization’s Human Spaceflight Center for two years.

The desire for advanced research drew him back to school.

“My work was fun, but I had a longing to do more fundamental research, to go beyond what a normal industry job does,” he said.

He earned a master’s at the University of Alberta. There, he worked on a different sounding rocket instrument and earned first prize at the AIAA SmallSat conference student paper competition for a submission based on his master’s thesis.

Telikicherla wearing a clean room "bunny suit."

For his PhD, Telikicherla was drawn to ɫ��ֱ��, where he had already spent time at as an undergrad in a summer exchange program called INSPIRE.

A collaboration with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), INSPIRE offers students from around the world the chance to come to ɫ��ֱ�� to design and build a small satellite. It was where he was first introduced to Woods’ research.

“He was the PI on one of the satellite’s instruments and as we were building it, I realized I was more interested in the instrument than the larger spacecraft. That sounded more exciting, making new measurements of things no one has ever looked at before,” Telikicherla said “I told him I wanted to analyze the solar data after it launched and he said absolutely, even though I didn’t have a solar physics background.”

Now a year into his PhD program, Telikicherla splits his time on campus between the lab and conducting observational analysis of existing solar flare data.

“I can download data in real-time from satellites using LASP’s downlink and that’s awesome,” Telikicherla said. “Then, let’s say I get bored staring at my computer for hours, I can go work in the lab instead. I get to do both, and I feel that’s very enjoyable from a PhD student life point of view.”

SEUSHI is scheduled to launch aboard LASP’s EVE Rocket Program in April 2026 from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Anant Telikicherla is developing new instrumentation for an upcoming sub-orbital rocket flight. Surrounded by racks of electronics equipment, tools, and...

Off

Traditional

White

PhD student recognized as 20 Twenties Honoree

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 04:03:06 +0000

PhD student recognized as 20 Twenties Honoree Jeff Zehnder Wed, 02/12/2025 - 21:03

Jeff Zehnder

In space you can’t stop to ask for directions.

Kristen Ahner is advancing the science of autonomous space exploration.

An aerospace PhD student at the ɫ��ֱ��, Ahner is being recognized as a 2025 20 Twenties Winner by Aviation Week. The publication honors leading engineering students worldwide who are on course to “shape the future of the aerospace and defense industry.”

“It feels great,” Ahner said. “I was excited to be recognized and join a cohort of people doing impressive things who are all around my age.”

Autonomous Guidance

Ahner’s PhD research is focused on improving autonomous guidance techniques for spacecraft so they arrive at their destinations on time and efficiently. In deep space exploration, even the tiniest of navigation errors can push a satellite radically off course. In an environment where the distance between Point A and Point B is measured in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of miles, that can create major problems.

“Some of the uncertainty comes from thrust performance errors. We try to test engines in vacuums on Earth but there are always errors associated with that,” Ahner said. “Also, when we model spacecraft moving in space we often use simplified models – traveling between the Earth and the Moon we’ll assume the satellite is only orbiting Earth, but the Moon is pulling too.”

In engineering parlance, Ahner is working to advance the state of the art by combining high-fidelity uncertainty propagation techniques with nonlinear chance constraints for spacecraft control in cislunar space and planetary exploration environments.

Ahner at a future professors workshop held at Georgia Tech last year.

“I want to guide spacecraft more effectively. Computers on spacecraft aren’t smart enough to account for 300 different bodies that are exerting gravitational forces, so how can we develop better algorithms to make our corrections more accurate under simplified dynamical models,” she said.

Bachelor's to PhD

Her enthusiasm for these deep space challenges is palpable, but Ahner did not originally set out to study space or even to earn a PhD.

She grew up in a military family, primarily in Ohio, listening to the sounds of fighter jets taking off from nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Ahner envisioned her career would be on the aeronautics side of aerospace. A college internship at Boeing through the Brooke Owens Fellowship shifted her focus.

“I was working in space modeling and simulation. It was the same kind of analysis and math that I really liked, but had more unknowns than aviation. Space is the last frontier and I find that exciting,” she said.

Academic Future

The Boeing internship was in Colorado Springs, but it is not what brought her back to Colorado for graduate school. As an undergraduate at Princeton, Ahner was required to complete a thesis, and two names kept popping up on the papers she was reading: ɫ��ֱ��’s Jay McMahon and Dan Scheeres. Today, they are her PhD co-advisors.

Her goal now is to become a university professor herself.

“I had this heavy research load in my final year of undergrad. Initially I was scared of it. There’s uncertainty in doing a research project that may not work out, but I really enjoyed it. The more I learn the less intimidating it seems,” Ahner said.

Both of Ahner’s parents are extremely proud of her accomplishments. Her father is a fellow PhD graduate – earning his degrees in mechanical and systems engineering and teaching as an active duty member of the Army at West Point.

“My Dad loves talking to me about the intricacies of my research,” Ahner said. “It can be intense when we start talking shop. My Mom is my biggest cheerleader – she tells the whole world when I win an award, and she found the 20 Twenties announcement before it had even been officially released. I wouldn’t be where I am today without their support.”

Off

Traditional

White

From DIY drones in high school to advancing drone science as a PhD student

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 19:45:55 +0000

From DIY drones in high school to advancing drone science as a PhD student Jeff Zehnder Thu, 01/02/2025 - 12:45

Jeff Zehnder

Above: Céu Gómez-Faulk holding a RAAVEN drone.
Header Image: Céu Gómez-Faulk, center right, looking up at a RAAVEN drone during a deployment.

Céu Gómez-Faulk is standing outside a gas station in rural Oklahoma waiting for a sound most people hope to never hear: tornado sirens.

The clouds above are an otherworldly shade of green – a signal that supercell thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes may be in the area.

An aerospace PhD student at the ɫ��ֱ��, Gómez-Faulk is part of a multi-university team of students and faculty working to improve human understanding and predictions of tornadic storms by pursuing them with fixed-wing drones and weather-sensing equipment.

“It’s awe-inspiring,” Gómez-Faulk said. “There’s so much energy involved in these processes, and they’re so unpredictable. It’s frightening but also inspiring.”

Gómez-Faulk has been interested in drones from a young age. In high school, he competed in drone racing tournaments when quad-copters were still new and largely out of reach for consumers.

So he constructed his own.

“We were building these aircraft out of RC plane parts,” Gómez-Faulk said. “The control systems to design quad-copters weren’t really available to the hobbyist market yet.”

He was captivated by the components he was dissecting and wanted to know more. The child of academics – both of his parents have worked as college professors – Gómez-Faulk started reading research papers, leading him to apply at ɫ��ֱ��.

“I loved airplanes and everything about them. I always knew I wanted to do aeronautical engineering. Looking around on the internet I found the Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles and specifically Professor Eric Frew,” Gómez-Faulk said.

When he arrived in ɫ��ֱ�� as a freshman, he sought out the RECUV lab and convinced them to hire him as a student employee within his first month on campus.

“I didn’t really give them a choice, but I couldn’t tell you why they hired me,” he said.

Lab Manager Michael Rhodes has the answer.

“To have gone on his own in high school and looked up research papers, that’s unusual,” Rhodes said. “But really, it was his enthusiasm. He had flying experience, but at the undergrad level, it’s not what you’ve done. It’s enthusiasm that matters.”

Madison Ritsch, Céu Gómez-Faulk, and Michael Rhodes working on a RAAVEN drone during a deployment in Tornado Alley.

Gómez-Faulk worked as an active contributor to the lab and in 2023 was able to join in field storm research, as the team fanned out across Tornado Alley.

“We’re using uncrewed aerial systems and autonomy to improve our understanding of the atmosphere. Doing field campaigns is what sets ɫ��ֱ�� apart. We have to take our algorithms into the field and see how they perform. It makes the work feel very important. It is not abstract,” Gómez-Faulk said.

After completing his bachelor’s degree, Gómez-Faulk wanted to have a more active role in designing research, and decided to continue on to a PhD, with Frew and Professor Brian Argrow serving as his co-advisors.

“Research and development explores new frontiers, and I wanted to have more of a guiding hand. As an undergrad, you’re doing lower-level work. I wanted to be part of the bigger picture, what is being targeted and why. It led me pretty naturally to the doctoral program,” he said.

Now in his second year as a grad student, Gómez-Faulk is working to advance the autonomous flight algorithms that allow ɫ��ֱ��’s systems to navigate in extreme weather conditions. It is challenging work that requires advanced engineering skills.

“I see myself as a career scientist, and we’re working toward better wind sensing,” Gómez-Faulk said. “This is the way to get there. It’s very tangible and it really matters.”

Céu Gómez-Faulk is standing outside a gas station in rural Oklahoma waiting for a sound most people hope to never hear: tornado sirens. The clouds above are an otherworldly shade of...

Off

Traditional

Céu Gómez-Faulk, center right, looking up at a RAAVEN drone during a deployment.

White

PhD student advancing hypersonic engineering for spacecraft

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:21:19 +0000

PhD student advancing hypersonic engineering for spacecraft Jeff Zehnder Thu, 12/05/2024 - 13:21

Jeff Zehnder

Mitch Wall is studying atmospheric conditions at the threshold of space to improve future hypersonic vehicles and spacecraft.

An aerospace PhD student and Smead Scholar at the ɫ��ֱ��, Wall is conducting computational fluid dynamics research to better understand a challenging zone of the atmosphere between 70-120 km in altitude.

“We fly spacecraft through that region of the atmosphere, but it represents a range where the uncertainty in our fluid dynamics analysis is larger,” Wall said. “As a result, when building a vehicle, we have to ask the guidance people or the structures people to overdesign their systems to compensate because we can’t shrink our uncertainty.”

Traveling at hypersonic speeds, more than five times the speed of sound, causes the temperature of air and other gases around a vehicle to reach thousands of degrees, triggering chemical reactions on and around the vehicle. Reducing uncertainty in the atmospheric conditions would ease vehicle design and operation.

The analysis, however, demands much more than a typical desktop computer. Wall’s work requires use of ɫ��ֱ��’s supercomputing resources.

“I’m working on a solver that couples two of the labs in-house fluid dynamics solvers,” Wall said. “One is for low altitude flow and another is more commonly used for high altitude flows in space. I’m wrangling these two different methods and there’s two different codes to learn instead of one. Then I’m dealing with the nuts and bolts to get them to play nicely together.”

It is a type of research with significant potential for the future.

“As we try to do more flying hypersonically, this is an area where we can sharpen our pencil and then be able to go places we wouldn’t necessarily go otherwise,” Wall said.

Wall’s research is funded through a prestigious National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship he received in 2022.

“I really like the project I’m working on and having a fellowship you have the freedom to steer where you go. It was pretty exciting to get,” he said.

Growing up, Wall knew he had interests in math and physics, but it was not until high school teachers encouraged him to pursue engineering that he saw it as a career possibility.

“I didn’t really have an idea of what I could do with it. Understanding physical systems and diving deep into the math, understanding the world around you and having that perspective going through life is super satisfying to me,” he said.

Originally from Wisconsin, he completed his undergraduate degree in engineering mechanics at the University of Wisconsin Madison and decided to go on for a PhD at ɫ��ֱ��.

“The experiences I had at internships pushed me toward a PhD,” Wall said. “The people I was really impressed with and thought had really cool jobs, a lot of them had PhDs. I saw how that enabled you to make more important fundamental engineering decisions on projects.”

Wall chose ɫ��ֱ�� after connecting with students working under professor Iain Boyd, an expert on hypersonic aerothermodynamics. Boyd became his PhD advisor.

“I knew I wanted to do aerospace and heard about professor Boyd and got in touch with his students. It really attracted me here; everyone in his lab were working on things they cared about,” Wall said.

As a first generation college student, pursuing an advanced degree was a major step, but it was taken by both Wall and his brother.

“We didn’t come from an academic background and now he has a BS/MS in architecture and I’m working on my PhD,” Wall said. “I took education and ran with it. My dad was a carpenter, and I see the thread there, understanding how things are put together and work. My parents are very proud, which is nice.”

Off

Traditional

White

PhD student working to keep astronauts safer on the Moon

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 15:20:34 +0000

PhD student working to keep astronauts safer on the Moon Jeff Zehnder Tue, 10/29/2024 - 09:20

Jeff Zehnder

Amrita Singh working with a vacuum chamber.

Amrita Singh is studying lunar dust to answer important health and technology questions for future Moon missions.

The gray, crushed rock material that coats the surface of the Moon is officially called regolith and presents substantial dangers, said Singh, a PhD student in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the ɫ��ֱ��.

“The Apollo astronauts struggled a lot with lunar dust. It’s electrostatically charged, so it sticks to everything, and it’s basically crushed up glass in terms of how abrasive it is. It poses dangers to crew health,” she said.

Those risks include rapid deterioration of space suits used on Moon walks, as well as damage to systems inside space capsules or habitats on the Moon.

“We need to make sure our life support technologies are capable of surviving the lunar dust environment. It will enter the habitat. There’s no way of completely preventing that,” Singh said.

The recipient of a 2023 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), Singh is developing computational simulations and experimental tests of life support technologies to determine their continued effectiveness after exposure.

“My research focuses on worst-case scenarios. What if something goes wrong and the planned dust mitigation strategies fail and there’s dust everywhere?” Singh said. “We know we will see significant performance degradation for many technologies, but we don’t know what the degree of degradation or material damage will be. Those are the questions I’m trying to answer.”

Singh did not originally plan on a career in aerospace. As an undergraduate at the University of Southern California, she double majored in theater and astronautical engineering.

She was drawn to both, but envisioned her future would be in acting or directing. COVID-19 changed her trajectory.

Harrison Schmitt's space suit covered in lunar dust during Apollo 17.

“The pandemic hit my junior year, and all the jobs and plans I had lined up were destroyed,” she said. “I was spending a lot of time at home and took my first human spaceflight class, remotely, with Garrett Reisman, who is a former astronaut. That’s when I started thinking I could love aerospace as much as I love theater. As it turns out, I love it more.”

An aerospace education does present unique academic challenges, but Singh has persevered.

“I really value math and science, but they are not my strong suits and it will take me a couple tries to learn a physics concept before it finally clicks,” she said.

During her senior year, she began a work-from-home internship at NASA’s Ames Research Center, providing exposure to the world of research and piquing her interest in earning an advanced degree.

“The researcher I worked with was doing radiation modeling for cells, and she spent time re-introducing me to chemistry, biology, and physics — these fields I’d fallen out of love with — and made me fall in love with them again. It drove me to pursue a PhD,” Singh said.

She applied to ɫ��ֱ��’s bioastronautics PhD program and is now in her second year. In 2023, she earned both the NSF GRFP and recognition as an Aviation Week 20 Twenties Winner, a program that honors promising aerospace students across the United States.

Last semester, she and Ella Schauss, a fellow aerospace PhD student, competed in NASA’s Human Lander Challenge, a student competition to design concepts for addressing Moon dust kicked up during descent and landing.

They took third place nationally, earning a $3,000 prize.

“There’s still so many questions about lunar dust,” Singh said. “That uncertainty is what drew me in. It’s such an important aspect of what it means to be in on the lunar surface. It’s really important for the future.”

Amrita Singh is studying lunar dust to answer important health and technology questions for future Moon missions...

Off

Traditional

White

Pollution to production: student startup transforms CO2 into aerospace hardware

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 21:11:17 +0000

Pollution to production: student startup transforms CO2 into aerospace hardware Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/28/2024 - 14:11

Jeff Zehnder

Spencer Dansereau is building a business that could turn air pollution into a useable product.

A ɫ��ֱ�� aerospace PhD student, Dansereau aims to take carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and extract the carbon molecules to create 3D printed carbon fiber, which can be used for everything from bicycles to aerospace components.

“I’m really passionate about creating exciting next generation solutions that are also very positive for our environment. It led me to design a system that uses electrolysis to create carbon fibers directly from waste gas CO2,” Dansereau said.

The work is a bit outside his PhD research, which is focused on heat shield analysis for NASA missions, and grew from the 2020 COVID lockdowns, when Dansereau was stuck at home with little to do.

“I couldn’t come into the lab and started doing a whole lot of reading on how carbon fiber was made. Then I starting thinking about my experience in materials science and robotics and additive manufacturing,” Dansereau said.

After conversations with his PhD co-advisor Francisco López Jiménez, an assistant professor of aerospace, Dansereau began to develop the technology further and founded a company to commercialize it.

Starting a business presented unique challenges, but he received support from numerous university programs designed to assist budding entrepreneurs. ɫ��ֱ�� has offices to help with intellectual property and patent filing, and even access to mentorship opportunities from successful startups.

“On the technology side I have a decade of experience, but the business side is different and the tools that ɫ��ֱ�� has for helping to launch a business are amazing. I can’t say enough good things about it,” he said.

In 2023, Mach Electric Aerospace took first place in ɫ��ֱ��’s Lab Venture Challenge business development competition and second place in New Venture Challenge. The company recently received $125,000 in startup funding from the State of Colorado and the university.

“It’s still early stage, but the research has been promising so far,” Dansereau said. “Anything that produces CO2 waste gas could be feed stock to make carbon fiber.”

He recently applied to a U.S. Department of Energy fellowship to further the research and is optimistic about potential applications for the technology.

“The most exciting thing is this can be used in everything from electric vehicles, to aircraft, spacecraft, anything with carbon fiber components – seats, brackets, clips, engine parts, chassis components,” Dansereau said. "The sky is the limit.”

Off

Traditional

White

Asteroid named for ɫ��ֱ�� aerospace grad student

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:02:37 +0000

Asteroid named for ɫ��ֱ�� aerospace grad student Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/13/2024 - 09:02

Jeff Zehnder

Asteroids with ɫ��ֱ�� Connections

Meyer is not the first person at ɫ��ֱ�� to have an asteroid named after them! There are currently three other researchers in Smead Aerospace who also have the distinction:

Distinguished Professor Dan Scheeres

Asteroid: (8887) Scheeres

Associate Professor Jay McMahon

Asteroid: (46829) McMahon

Research Associate Paul Sánchez

Asteroid: (20882) Paulsánchez

Above: Alex Meyer
Header Image: Diagram showing the orbital path of asteroid (33974) Alexmeyer.

PhD student played key role on NASA’s DART Mission

Alex Meyer is an astrodynamics expert, engineer, PhD student, and now, a part of the night sky. The International Astronomical Union has officially named an asteroid after him.

Asteroid 2000 ND17 is now (33974) Alexmeyer.

“It’s pretty cool and quite an honor,” Meyer said. “You look around at other asteroids and the people they’re named after; it’s very good company to be in.”

As a fifth year aerospace PhD student at the ɫ��ֱ��, Meyer is being recognized for fundamental research he conducted on the dynamics of binary asteroid systems and how they are affected by close planetary flybys.

His work is part of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which in 2022 intentionally crashed a space probe into an orbiting binary asteroid to study deflection technology.

“Alex’s research was fundamentally relevant to the DART mission,” said Dan Scheeres, a distinguished professor of aerospace at ɫ��ֱ�� and Meyer’s advisor.

Scheeres nominated Meyer for the naming honor.

“He played such a big role and the work he provided was really unique. He developed simulations on what would happen to this asteroid after the impact and provided advice on the science to other engineers,” Scheeres said.

The naming is made all the more impressive by the fact that Meyer’s contributions began somewhat unexpectedly.

“When I started at ɫ��ֱ�� I was interested in orbital mechanics, but was playing around in a couple different areas of research. Then a more senior grad student who had responsibility with DART was leaving, and Dan asked if I could take over,” Meyer said.

He dove in with aplomb.

“Binary asteroids gave me the opportunity to work on cutting edge missions and I just kept finding new and interesting things to study,” Meyer said. “The dynamics of these binary systems can be quite complicated. Asteroids don’t look like spheres; they’re weird shapes and their orbits are quite close together. So the gravity between them becomes really complex.”

A personal ambition toward advanced research and analysis is what drove Meyer’s interest in graduate school and specifically ɫ��ֱ��.

“This is one of the best astrodynamics schools in the country, and being able to apply myself on these real world problems as a PhD student is a great opportunity. I was one of the main dynamicists on the mission,” Meyer said.

The research has become a key part of his PhD thesis. Meyer intends to graduate this summer and is currently at work on his dissertation. After graduation, he hopes to work full time in a research laboratory.

Meyer’s asteroid orbits as part of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Approximately 7 km (4.35 mi) in diameter, it was originally spotted in 2000. It is possible to see with a large personal telescope, but it requires at least an 18” mirror, and so is best viewed from an observatory.

Alex Meyer is an astrodynamics expert, engineer, PhD student, and now, a part of the night sky. The International Astronomical Union has officially named an asteroid after him. Asteroid 2000 ND17 is now...

Off

Traditional

White

PhD student designing augmented reality for space missions

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:14:32 +0000

PhD student designing augmented reality for space missions Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/06/2023 - 09:14

Jeff Zehnder

Dezell Turner loves orbital design; a critical step in planning any space mission, and he is plotting out a way to streamline the complex process with an interactive, augmented reality tool.

“The current methods of trajectory design for cislunar space – missions that go beyond low Earth orbit to the Moon – are very complicated and not intuitive. I want to change that,” Turner said.

As an aerospace PhD student at the ɫ��ֱ��, Turner discussed ideas with his advisor. They realized a mixed reality system would be a major advance, allowing engineers and mission planners to quickly design and manipulate trajectories in a 3D real-world environment.

“Being able to see something in 3D space is hugely helpful, but this goes beyond that,” Turner said. “The system will allow you to physically interact with virtual objects. You’re wearing a headset and are able to grab holograms and manipulate them with your hands. I can drag an orbit to do what I want. I can change the end point of a transfer orbit and see how it shifts overall.”

It is a huge undertaking. Turner is effectively designing a new piece of software on his own, but it has major promise.

“Designing cislunar trajectories is much more complex than designing trajectories around the Earth. With cislunar trajectories, you have the Earth and the Moon’s gravity both pulling on the spacecraft, and sometimes the orbits can take unexpected shapes,” he said.

Despite the challenge, Turner is well suited to the task. He has a longstanding passion for astrodynamics and has been honored multiple times for educational excellence. He is currently a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, Smead Scholar, and a GEM Fellow. Each program provides funding for promising young scientists and engineers pursuing graduate education, with GEM focused on expanding access for underrepresented minorities.

Turner said GEM is important to bringing more viewpoints to science and engineering problems.

Example of the mixed reality trajectory software.

“I think it’s pretty imperative that we have a more diverse space workforce,” he said. “Space is about tackling really hard problems and you can’t do that as well if you aren’t considering all the angles.”

Despite his fellowship success and recognition by internship programs like the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship and Space Workforce 2030, at times Turner still doubts his talent.

“These programs have helped connect me to all kinds of different people and really tackle my imposter syndrome. I’m grateful to have that access and hope I can pay it forward. They help me remember there is in a place in this industry for me and I hope I can help other people see that they belong too,” he said.

Despite any lingering fears, Turner loves what he is doing and the impact aerospace work can have. During an internship at the Aerospace Corporation, he was part of a team of interns that developed a low cost GPS architecture for cislunar space. It is a design the company continues to advance.

“ The coolest part was when they told us they would be carrying the project forward. It reminded us that it wasn’t a game for interns, it was a real project with real impact,” Turner said. “It was an amazing experience.”

As a second year PhD student, Turner still has 2-3 years left in his education and is leaning toward a career in industry.

“I’m like a kid in the candy store except the candies are fuels and spacecraft,” he said. “Aerospace is such a wonderful place to be. I’m very fortunate.”

Off

Traditional

White

ɫ��ֱ�� student advancing safety for orbiting spacecraft

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 15:48:27 +0000

ɫ��ֱ�� student advancing safety for orbiting spacecraft Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/20/2022 - 09:48

Jeff Zehnder

Sarah Luettgen is building a future as an aerospace professional, studying the space domain of satellite orbits in the extreme upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere.

As a second-year aerospace PhD student and Smead Scholar at the ɫ��ֱ��, Luettgen is leveraging advanced atmospheric models and super computers to study an area of the upper atmosphere from 80-600 km (50-375 miles) in altitude and beyond, where air and other gases dissipate, and space begins.

Many satellites, including the International Space Station, orbit through this range. But even at these high elevations, some atmospheric gases remain and can cause trouble.

“One of the biggest challenges is satellite drag,” Luettgen said. “Atmospheric density can vary by an order of magnitude depending on the conditions at a given moment. If we have a more accurate way to model these changes, it can reduce the uncertainty for operators trying to determine orbital paths.”

Gas levels in the atmosphere can change because of weather conditions on Earth as well as solar storms from the sun – called space weather. It is an area of active research and Luettgen hopes to develop better models to predict spacecraft trajectories more accurately and safely.

The research also has potential to help improve understanding of climate change and explore what makes our planet habitable, she said.

“The issue is we need a fluid model for the lower part of the atmosphere where gases are denser, but as you get higher, things get less dense and there are fewer atmospheric collisions. There it makes more sense to model the motion of individual particles,” Luettgen said.

The effort, sponsored by the NASA Heliophysics Theory, Modeling, and Simulations program in combination with a NASA/FINESST fellowship Luettgen earned last year, aims to create a unified model of both.

This is where the super computers come in. This type of work requires crunching a lot of numbers in parallel to simulate a very large volume of space and its evolution over days, months, or years. Using systems operated and maintained by NASA and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Luettgen is writing code across several computer languages and platforms that will push the limits of atmospheric modeling into new areas.

It is intensive work that just a few years ago would have been impossible.

“I wouldn’t be able to do this research without the computational technologies available today,” Luettgen said. “I feel very lucky. We’re at a point where the coupling of these two models into a single massive simulation is now possible and is the next logical step as computing power and mathematical methods have advanced.”

As she begins the second year of her PhD program, Luettgen is looking forward to how the work will progress. She sees these developed skills as transferable to a career in industry, government, or academia and is keeping the door open for however the future unfolds. For now, however, Luettgen is thoroughly enjoying her research and doctoral program.

“I started thinking about a PhD in second grade,” Luettgen said. “I love school and I’ve always been drawn to physics and math, and I love applying it.”

Off

Traditional

White

Grad Profile

PhD student advancing medical research for life on Earth and in space

Off

Enhancing orbital safety with better space weather predictions

Off

PhD student recognized as 20 Twenties Honoree

Autonomous Guidance

Bachelor's to PhD

Academic Future

Off

From DIY drones in high school to advancing drone science as a PhD student

Off

PhD student advancing hypersonic engineering for spacecraft

Off

PhD student working to keep astronauts safer on the Moon

Off

Pollution to production: student startup transforms CO2 into aerospace hardware

Off

Asteroid named for ɫ�����ֱ�� aerospace grad student

Asteroids with ɫ�����ֱ�� Connections

Off

PhD student designing augmented reality for space missions

Off

ɫ�����ֱ�� student advancing safety for orbiting spacecraft

Off

Asteroid named for ɫ��ֱ�� aerospace grad student

Asteroids with ɫ��ֱ�� Connections

ɫ��ֱ�� student advancing safety for orbiting spacecraft