Hanspeter Schaub News

CU Boulder, industry partner on space docking and satellite AI research

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 15:00:58 +0000

CU Boulder, industry partner on space docking and satellite AI research Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/03/2024 - 09:00

Jeff Zehnder

Hanspeter Schaub standing in front of a vacuum chamber in his lab that will be used in the the research with In Orbit Aerospace.

Docking with a satellite orbiting Earth is delicate business, with one wrong move spelling disaster. A team of industry and University of Colorado Boulder researchers is trying to make it easier.

The work is part of two major business-university grant partnerships that include the lab of Hanspeter Schaub, a professor and chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

“The goal with these grants is very much tech transfer,” Schaub said. “We’re combining university research with business goals and initiatives to develop a product or service.”

The first project is a U.S. Space Force Small Business Technology Transfer grant with In Orbit Aerospace Inc. The goal is to use electro adhesive forces to ease docking between satellites, future space cargo vehicles, or orbital debris. Electro adhesion uses short-range strong electric fields to hold together adjacent bodies, even if they are not made of magnetic materials.

“Docking in space is surprisingly difficult. If servicer bumps target vehicle in an unexpected manner, it’s going to bounce off and fly away. Electro adhesion has been used a lot already with manufacturing on Earth. With electric fields, you can create attractive forces to grab stuff. They’re not huge forces, but they’re nice,” Schaub said.

The team completed early work on the project last year and has now advanced to a second stage, which began in May.

Schaub’s portion of the grant is worth about $500,000 over 18 months, and includes numerical modeling and atmospheric experiments as well as the creation of samples to test in the lab’s vacuum chamber that approximates orbital conditions.

It is not the only business development grant in Schaub’s lab. He and Associate Professor Nisar Ahmed are also in the process of setting up a contract with Trusted Space, Inc. on a U.S. Air Force STTR grant to advance autonomous satellite fault identification. CU Boulder’s portion of this project is worth roughly $300,000 over 18 months.

Like all electronics and machines, satellites sometimes fail. The goal of the effort with Trusted Space is to develop an AI that can automatically identify likely sources of errors.

“If a satellite isn’t tracking in orbit, maybe something bumped into it, maybe the rate gyroscope is off, maybe everything is fine but a sensor is giving bad information. There might be 10 different reasons why and we’re trying to down select in an automated way so a human doesn’t have to scour through datasets manually,” Schaub said.

The team has completed proof of concept work on a Phase 1 grant and is now advancing to Phase 2, modeling dozens of potential errors.

Both grants make extensive use of Basilisk, a piece of software developed by Schaub’s lab to conduct spacecraft mission simulations.

Although many of Schaub’s grants are directly with government agencies or multi-university initiatives, he said conducting work with a business partner offers unique opportunities for advancing science and additional potential for students.

“�鶹��Ժ get exposure to industry and are excited because suddenly people outside the research community are interested in what they’re doing,” Schaub said. “They attend meetings and see how projects are run, what challenges industry is trying to solve. It helps influence their dissertations and gives more focus. I see a lot of benefits and companies also often want to hire the students.”

Docking with a satellite orbiting Earth is delicate business, with one wrong move spelling disaster. A team of industry and University of Colorado Boulder researchers is trying to make it easier. The work is part of two major business-university grant partnerships that...

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Schaub honored for transformational astrodynamics research, teaching

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 22:34:28 +0000

Schaub honored for transformational astrodynamics research, teaching Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/16/2024 - 15:34

Jeff Zehnder

Hanspeter Schaub is being recognized by the American Astronautical Society.

AAS is honoring Schaub as the 2024 Dirk Brouwer Award for "transformational work in the emerging field of charged spacecraft formation flight and control and for sustained and outstanding contributions to astrodynamics research, application, and teaching."

Schaub is a professor in and chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

He is an expert in the field of attitude dynamics, relative motion dynamics, charged astrodynamics and autonomous spacecraft tasking with neural networks. Schaub is a prolific researcher, as author or co-author of more than 200 journal papers and a popular textbook that is now in its fourth edition. He also runs a large laboratory, and is currently advising more than 20 doctoral and master’s students.

Schaub has been recognized multiple times for excellence in research and education, including the 2023 Hazel Barnes Prize from CU Boulder, the university's highest distinction for faculty; the 2020 American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Rocky Mountain Section Collegiate Educator of the Year Award; and the 2017 AIAA J. Leland Atwood Award.

He has been a member of the CU Boulder aerospace faculty since 2007 and holds a bachelor's, master's, and PhD in aerospace engineering, all from Texas A&M University.

Schaub is the fourth CU Boulder aerospace faculty member to receive the Brouwer distinction, following Dan Scheeres in 2012, George Born in 1998, and Robert Culp in 1993.

He will be officially presented with the award at the 2024 AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference in August in Denver.

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Sci-fi inspired tractor beams are real, and could solve a major space junk problem

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 15:23:52 +0000

Sci-fi inspired tractor beams are real, and could solve a major space junk problem Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/30/2023 - 09:23

Research in Hanspeter's Schaub's lab on real-life tractor beams is being highlighted in Live Science News.

The technology, more officially called an electro-static tractor, is a project of Schaub's Autonomous Vehicle Systems (AVS) laboratory.

Schaub, a professor and chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is an expert in charged astrodynamics and orbital mechanics.

If the team is successful, a key focus for the work would be alleviating the increasing problem of space junk -- derelict satellites and equipment cluttering up areas in Earth orbit.

Read the full article at Live Science...

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CU Boulder grads launch startups to change the future of aerospace

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 14:00:00 +0000

CU Boulder grads launch startups to change the future of aerospace Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/09/2023 - 08:00

Jeff Zehnder

Find Out More About Alumni Startups

Advanced Space - From a condo loft to NASA contracts

Black Swift Technologies - Developing unmanned aircraft systems for extreme environments

In Orbit Aerospace - Enabling mass manufacturing and research in space

Building a startup business is intense, and for a number of University of Colorado Boulder aerospace graduates, they would not have it any other way.

The Front Range is a recognized hub for startups and technology firms; earlier this year, the CU system was honored as fifth in the nation for startup creation. With the state’s major aerospace presence, it is no surprise that many startups are aerospace-oriented.

A Startup World

“From our experiences doing research at CU Boulder we developed an appetite for solving difficult problems with uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) and the tools to develop that into a career,” said Jack Elston (ElCompEngr’03, MS’05, AeroEngr MS’07 PhD’11), CEO of Black Swift Technologies.

The company, which he co-founded with Maciej Stachura (AeroEngr PhD'13), began in Elston’s living room. Today, Black Swift designs purpose-built aerial platforms for scientific research in extreme environments — think hurricanes and inside the mouth of volcanoes.

The business is one of a half dozen founded by graduates from the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences over the last 15 years, according to professor and chair Hanspeter Schaub, who notes CU Boulder and the larger Boulder community’s status as entrepreneurial hubs.

“We have classes on engineering management, there is nearby venture capital funding, and faculty have spinoff companies; students see all that,” Schaub said. “There were no startups when I was going through school. At that time, there wasn’t this idea that you could start an aerospace company with two or three people.”

Ishaan Patel (MAeroEngr’18) knows the traditional aerospace path well. He spent time at two longstanding large firms and NASA before co-founding In Orbit Aerospace, which is developing uncrewed reentry vehicles and orbital utility stations to enable lower-cost in-space manufacturing and research infrastructure.

“In Orbit finally gave me an opportunity where I saw all of my research interests integrated into one core vision,” Patel said. “Although running a start-up can feel like a rollercoaster, it’s exciting to be able to work on something I am truly passionate about in the NewSpace economy.”

Education to Business

Kathryn Wingate, an aerospace teaching assistant professor, said the department’s academic program provides tools important for engineers who plan to follow a typical career path or strike out on their own.

“We teach a lot of things people do in startups, like the iterative process and prototyping, and we follow the standard Systems V development lifecycle,” Wingate said. “A startup is a higher risk, but it’s a quicker way to change the industry. If you like the idea of being your own boss and being in control, it’s exciting.”

Bradley Cheetham (MAeroEngr’11) understands that risk and reward as co-founder of Advanced Space.

“Starting a business sounds exciting, almost sexy, but the reality is that it takes so much mental fortitude,” Cheetham said. “We started as a group of three working in a loft in my condo. If you can lean into the hard times and allow yourself to grow with the company, it becomes enjoyable. Being challenged in different ways can be exciting if you are open to the diversity of challenges that arise daily.”

Advanced Space is developing technology to enable sustainable exploration, development and settlement of space. In 2022, it launched the successful CAPSTONE satellite, which is orbiting the Moon.

Cheetham’s partner and fellow Advanced Space co-founder, Dr. Jeff Parker (MAeroEngr’03, PhD’07) said being careful and intentional about growing as a business has helped them go from three people in 2011 to 56 employees today.

“We love what we do, and Advanced Space lets us do it,” Parker said. “We have fully intended this company to be built to be a multi-generational company: something that will outlast anyone here. How often do you get the opportunity to help define interplanetary missions, test out new navigation technologies, and inspire engineers all at the same time?”

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Space tractor beams may not be the stuff of sci-fi for long

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 20:41:02 +0000

Space tractor beams may not be the stuff of sci-fi for long Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/01/2023 - 14:41

On Feb. 10, 2009, disaster struck hundreds of miles above the Siberian Peninsula. That evening, a defunct Russian satellite orbiting Earth crashed into a communications satellite called Iridium 33 moving at a speed of thousands of miles per hour. Both spacecraft erupted into a rain of shrapnel, sending more than 1,800 chunks of debris spiraling around the globe.

No other spacecraft (or humans) were harmed, but for many aerospace engineers, the event was a sign of things to come. Space, it seemed, was getting crowded.

NASA estimates that about 23,000 chunks of debris the size of a softball or larger currently swirl through space. All that junk means that another collision like the one that destroyed Iridium 33 becomes increasingly likely every year—only this time, the fallout could be much worse.

“The problem with space debris is that once you have a collision, you're creating even more space debris,” said Julian Hammerl, a doctoral student in aerospace engineering sciences at CU Boulder. “You have an increased likelihood of causing another collision, which will create even more debris. There’s a cascade effect.”

Hammerl and a team led by Professor Hanspeter Schaub have a plan for stopping those cascades before they start. The researchers are drawing on one of the oldest tropes in science fiction: tractor beams like the ones the Starship Enterprise uses to safely move asteroids out of the way.

Imagine this: In the not-so-distant future, a fleet of small spacecraft could whiz around Earth, rendezvousing with dead hunks of metal in geosynchronous orbit around the planet. Then, using devices called “electron beams,” these space dumpster trucks would slowly haul that debris to safety without ever having to touch it—all by tapping into the same kind of physics that make your socks stick to your pants in the dryer.

“We’re creating an attractive or repulsive electrostatic force,” said Schaub, chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. “It’s similar to the tractor beam you see in Star Trek, although not nearly as powerful.”

First, Schaub and his colleagues must solve a series of challenges, which they’ve described in numerous recent studies. The researchers, for example, are employing a new facility to replicate the surprisingly complex environment around Earth. They’re also setting their sights on how tractor beams might someday remove debris from the region of space between Earth and the moon.

“Touching things in space is very dangerous. Objects are moving very fast and often unpredictably,” said Kaylee Champion, a doctoral student working with Schaub. “This could open up a lot of safer avenues for servicing spacecraft.”

Simulation of objects around Earth in 1965 as seen from geosynchronous orbit, left, and low-Earth orbit, right. (Credit: NASA)

By 2010, the population of satellites and other objects in orbit around Earth has grown immensely. (Credit: NASA)

Space in a can

Champion and her fellow researchers are exploring those avenues now from a lab with a view of the Flatirons on the university’s East Campus.

A handful of students cluster around a cylinder about the size of a whiskey barrel. It’s made of a thick layer of stainless steel with several, porthole-like windows for peeking inside. This vacuum chamber, called the Electrostatic Charging Laboratory for Interactions between Plasma and Spacecraft (ECLIPS), is open at its base now. But with a buzz of a motor, the cylinder slowly lowers down until it clamps shut.

Soon, a pump will begin depressurizing the chamber. In about a day, no air will remain inside—a small pocket of space right in the middle of Boulder. Schaub and his team designed the chamber themselves, and it’s unlike any other research facility in the country.

Hanspeter Schaub in his lab with the ECLIPS facility in the background. (Credit: Patrick Campbell/CU Boulder)

Julian Hammerl makes adjustments to a metal cube representing a derelict spacecraft inside the ECLIPS facility. (Credit: Nico Goda/CU Boulder)

Graphic illustrating how a servicer spacecraft could remove debris from orbit using electrostatic forces. (Credit: Schaub Lab)

This space-in-miniature takes center stage in the group’s experiments with electrostatic tractors. Inside, the group can replicate the environment around Earth, which isn’t empty but, instead, awash in a thin gas of free electrons and charged atoms called plasma. The group can even simulate debris in this chamber using cubes or more complex shapes made of metal.

Today, the researchers are trying to mimic conditions in what Schaub called an “expensive patch of real estate” in space.

Earth’s geosynchronous orbit, or “GEO,” begins about 22,000 miles from the planet’s surface, a far trek from the low-Earth orbit, or “LEO,” where Iridium 33 met its demise. There, you can find some of the most expensive satellites ever built—military and telecommunications spacecraft that reach the size of school buses and weigh well over a ton.

“GEO is like the Bel Air of space,” Schaub said.

It’s also getting crowded. Engineers estimate that there are about 180 potential geosynchronous orbital parking spots where satellites can squeeze into. All of them have been claimed or are already occupied.

Tractor beams, Schaub said, may be able to safely move old spacecraft out of the way, making room for the next generation of satellites.

Virtual tethers

For Hammerl, the research project is one he couldn’t have dreamed of when he was a young student in his home city of Vienna, Austria. Hammerl studied mechanical engineering as an undergraduate, but he moved to Boulder for graduate school to pursue his passion for space exploration. (Austria doesn’t have its own space program.)

When he arrived, he had no idea just how complex this seemingly empty expanse could be.

In a simple sense, he explained, the team’s concept for an “electrostatic tractor” works a bit like rubbing a balloon on your head to make your hair stand on end. First, a servicing ship would approach a derelict satellite from a distance of about 15 to 25 meters (49 to 89 feet), then zap it with a beam of electrons. Those electrons would give the space debris a negative charge, while making the servicer more positive.

Like the adage says, opposites attract.

“With that attractive force, you can essentially tug away the debris without ever touching it,” Hammerl said. “It acts like what we call a virtual tether.”

It seems to work, too. Based on experiments in ECLIPS and computer models, the researchers calculate that an electrostatic tug could pull a satellite weighing several tons about 200 miles in two to three months. That’s a sluggish pace, but good enough to remove what are essentially glorified paperweights from precious orbital slots.

Scientists have proposed other strategies for removing debris from orbit, such as grabbing wayward satellites using harpoons. But all of those approaches require coming into direct contact with junk.

In practice, however, actually using a tractor beam in space is rife with complications.

For a start, decommissioned satellites don’t usually sit still and can even tumble wildly through space. In studies, Schaub and his students have shown that if you hit these chunks of metal with a rhythmic pulse of electrons, rather than a steady beam, you can potentially slow down their rotation—making the satellites safe to tug away or even get close to for making repairs.

Far from home

The team has also begun to think about a region of space where few pieces of debris reside today but is about to get a lot busier: “cislunar” space, or the zone between Earth and its moon. Here, conditions can get really wild.

Champion explained the sun ejects a near-constant stream of plasma, referred to as the solar wind. Outside of Earth’s protective magnetic field, that plasma environment can become unpredictable. Vehicles soaring through can disturb the flow of plasma and generate a wake of ions behind them, almost like a sailboat skimming through water. Those wakes could, in turn, affect the performance of an electrostatic tractor.

“That’s what makes this technology so challenging,” Champion said. “You have completely different plasma environments in low-Earth orbit, versus geosynchronous orbit versus around the moon. You have to deal with that.”

To do just that, Champion and her fellow lab members have augmented ECLIPS with an “ion gun,” a device that can create fast-moving currents of argon ions inside the chamber.

She hopes her work could one day help NASA’s efforts through its Artemis Program to send humans back to the moon—and, from there, to even farther beyond.

“Once we put people back on the moon, that’s a steppingstone to traveling to Mars,” Champion said.

Schaub noted space tractor beams might not be the stuff of science fiction for long. With the right funding, he predicts that his team would be ready to launch a prototype electrostatic tractor into space in just five to 10 years.

“The exciting thing about this technology is that the same servicing craft could move two or three or even dozens of objects during its lifetime. That brings your cost way down,” Schaub said. “No one wants to spend a billion dollars to move trash.”

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Hanspeter Schaub earns CU Boulder’s highest award for teaching and research

Anonymous — Fri, 26 May 2023 16:57:03 +0000

Hanspeter Schaub earns CU Boulder’s highest award for teaching and research Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 05/26/2023 - 10:57

Jeff Zehnder

Hanspeter Schaub has a passion for exploring the unknown—peering into uncharted areas of aerospace to push the boundaries of science and engineering.

As a professor and chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder, Schaub has made a career at the forefront of orbital mechanics, charged astrodynamics and space debris removal.

His work in space physics includes advancing tractor beam technology that is turning science fiction into science fact.

“I love learning and discovery,” Schaub said. “It’s almost like being an adventurer, exploring something that’s never been seen before.”

He has been recognized repeatedly by peers and outside organizations for excellence in both research and teaching, and CU Boulder is now presenting him with the university’s largest and most prestigious single faculty award: the Hazel Barnes Prize.

The honor recognizes outstanding teachers who also have distinguished records in research and scholarship.

“The essence of being a professor to me is integrating both teaching and research. Being acknowledged for that is humbling and exciting,” Schaub said.

A native of Switzerland, Schaub was drawn to aerospace at an early age after a seminal experience seeing the biggest movie of 1977.

“Star Wars. When it came out in Switzerland you had to be 16 at the time to see it. I was 10 or 11 and my older brother somehow snuck me in. I know it’s a movie, it’s not real, but it was very inspiring. I've always been fascinated with space,” he said.

As a professor, Schaub works to inspire and motivate his students by integrating current events, new research and technology into his classes. He was an early adopter of online distance education, developing MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) in Coursera that have become benchmarks.

“We want to reach everyone, not just people who can travel and live here in Boulder. I do it because it’s fun, but it’s very gratifying when someone comes up at a conference and says one of the online courses helped them.”

Schaub is a prolific researcher, as author or co-author of more than 200 journal papers and a popular textbook which is now in its fourth edition. He runs a large laboratory and is currently advising 17 doctoral students and 11 master’s candidates.

“Some faculty just think I’m crazy having a big lab, but students learn to lead and support the lab; they’re researchers who can help. I look at them not as a group of individuals, but as a team working toward common areas,” Schaub said.

As his lab expanded, Schaub sought out training in leadership and management to help him become a better mentor, and he now pushes his students to be strong leaders as well.

“I do workshops with them on how to write papers and proposals, how to use LaTeX and make illustrations. It helps them earn fellowships, and now I have a lab where I have their back and, quite frankly, they have mine, too,” Schaub said.

Schaub was officially presented with the Hazel Barnes Prize during a special ceremony held as part of May 2023 Campus Commencement.

“Being recognized is very nice, but what it really represents is my students,” Schaub said. “My husband and I don’t have kids, but you want to have an impact, a legacy. Seeing my students graduate and be happy and doing what they want to do. That’s the most important product.”

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Alumni, faculty honored at Smead Aerospace banquet

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 16:49:24 +0000

Alumni, faculty honored at Smead Aerospace banquet Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/24/2023 - 10:49

Jeff Zehnder

Headline Photo: Dr. Gerren with Smead Aerospace Alumni.
Above: Tim Straube receiving his alumni plaque from Dr. Schaub.

Full Photo Gallery at Flickr

The Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences honored graduates and faculty during a special 2023 alumni banquet.

Seven graduates were recognized for achievements in education, industry, research, and public service.

“These outstanding graduates are being honored for being visionaries in aeronautics and astronautics and leaders in their fields,” said Hanspeter Schaub, chair of Smead Aerospace. “We are pleased to recognize outstanding careers in aerospace engineering sciences, as well as early career achievements. These individuals are solving big challenges and are leading the industry towards new frontiers.”

In addition, three longtime faculty were honored for their contributions to research and education in aerospace.

The banquet was held at CU Boulder's Byron White Club on April 21.

Alumni honorees were recognized in three categories:

Outstanding Alumni for Excellence in Commercial Enterprise

Daryl Bahls (AeroEngr'77) (Over 40 Category) - Bahls retired from a 37-year career at Boeing and Martin Marietta, where he made major contributions to interplanetary mission design to solar system bodies, gravity assist flybys, and atmospheric entry. He also designed large-scale and specialized satellite constellations for geosynchronous and low-Earth orbits.
Kenneth Center (AeroEngr'89, MS'91, PhD'93) (Over 40 Category) - Center founded a small business that created scientifically grounded computer animations for aircraft accident investigations. He is now director of advanced programs at Orbit Logic, where he specializes in autonomous flight software and modular space architecture technologies.
Bradley Cheetham (MAeroEngr'11) (Under 40 Category) - Cheetham is the co-founder and CEO of Advanced Space, where he has led the successful lunar orbiter CAPSTONE along with a portfolio of commercial and government space projects. He also played a central role in bringing an FAA Center of Excellence in Commercial Space to CU Boulder.

Outstanding Alumni for Excellence in Public Service

Kyle Kemble (AeroEngr'13, MS'13) (Under 40 Category) - Kemble is a leading figure for the development and use of small satellite technologies and has made important contributions to the United States Space Force in the Space Warfighting Analysis Center.
Tim Straube (AeroEngr'91, MS'93, PhD'10) (Over 40 Category) - Straube is a leader for NASA’s Orion program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, with key roles in the production of the Software, Guidance, and Navigation systems for the Artemis I mission around the Moon, completed in December 2022, and earlier Orion flight tests. He previously had leadership and critical technical roles on the Autonomous Landing Hazard Avoidance Technology, Space Shuttle, and International Space Station programs.

Outstanding Alumni for Excellence in Research

Daniel Kubitschek (MechEngr'90; MAeroEngr'94, PhD'97) (Over 40 Category) - Kubitschek was a major contributor to autonomous navigation for the Deep Impact comet mission, aero braking on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and led attitude determination and control and flight dynamics for the Emirates Mars Mission.
Gary Wick (AeroEngr'88, MS'90, PhD'95) (Over 40 Category) - Wick, an internationally recognized expert in the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, has made advancements in the application and evaluation of remote sensing for oceanic and atmospheric research.

Honored Retired and Retiring Faculty

Prof. Emeritus Bob Culp - (AeroEngr MS'63, PhD' 66) Culp is a world authority on space debris, satellite fragmentation modeling, hazards to resident space objects, and the space environment.
Prof. Emeritus Bill Emery - Emery has conducted extensive studies of ocean surface processes, developed processing software for operational weather satellites and conducted studies of high-resolution satellite imagery for urban change detection and mapping of disaster effects.
Teaching Professor Donna Gerren - (Aero Engr BS'77, MS'79) Gerren's career has taken her from the Apollo-Soyuz Mission, to McDonnell Douglas, to the development of advanced aircraft analysis computer software. She returned to CU Boulder as a faculty member in 1995 where she has been a leading educator and mentor to thousands of students.

The Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences honored graduates and faculty during a special 2023 alumni banquet. Seven graduates were recognized for achievements in education, industry, research, and public service.

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Epic year for aerospace research funding at CU Boulder

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 17:14:36 +0000

Epic year for aerospace research funding at CU Boulder Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/22/2022 - 11:14

Jeff Zehnder

Year	Research Income	# of Research Awards
2022	$47,834,766	229
2021	$53,101,624	224
2020	$33,482,927	220
2019	$20,925,397	189
2018	$21,693,350	173
2017	$15,776,823	174
2016	$15,298,323	163
2015	$15,233,210	156
2014	$12,880,920	142
2013	$16,737,155	139
2012	$21,820,850	147

The Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder had another big year for research funding, bringing in nearly $48 million in awards.

The fiscal year 2022 number totals $47,834,766. It is the second highest year ever for funding in the department, behind only FY 2021, which topped $53 million.

“We have excellent faculty in our department who are being recognized for their expertise and it shows,” said Hanspeter Schaub, aerospace professor and department chair. “Space is a topic of interest again and the Air Force and Space Force are beginning to invest heavily into related research. Bioastronautics is also growing, with more access for humans to visit and work in space. Finally, remote sensing of and from space has been a strongly funded research area and fits out department expertise well.”

Over the last five years, the department’s research revenue has more than tripled, with significant growth in traditional aeronautics and aerospace fields and a push into newer areas like hypersonics.

The largest single grant during the most recent fiscal year was $15 million for the establishment of a new NASA hypersonics research center. The department also saw grants of over $1 million each in radio frequency research, orbital medicine, space domain awareness, virtual reality for space mission training, and artificial intelligence for drones.

Schaub expects the strong research funding totals to continue into the future.

“This is not a bubble in funding. There are several developments in progress that should keep this momentum going and it appears that this roughly $50 million a year funding level is here to stay,” Schaub said.

Research funding from FY 2022 spans 229 unique grants from organizations and government agencies including NASA, the National Science Foundation, private businesses, and other universities.

U.S. News and World Report ranks Smead Aerospace as the #6 public undergraduate program and #5 public graduate program among all universities.

The Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder had another big year for research funding, bringing in nearly $48 million in awards. The fiscal year 2022 number totals $47,834,766. It is the...

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CU Boulder lands $5.5 million Air Force project to advance orbital and AI research

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 15:01:46 +0000

CU Boulder lands $5.5 million Air Force project to advance orbital and AI research Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/23/2022 - 09:01

Jeff Zehnder

The waning gibbous Moon above the Earth's horizon over the Atlantic Ocean.

A team of University of Colorado Boulder researchers is embarking on a major research project that will advance our understanding of orbital mechanics and monitoring, artificial intelligence, and hypersonics.

Led by Marcus Holzinger, an associate professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, the group has signed a $5.54 million, five-year cooperative agreement with the Air Force Research Laboratory to advance science and monitoring for next generation of space vehicles – particularly those that will travel beyond low Earth orbit to the Moon.

“These are really complex multi-domain applications in the defense world and we’re bringing together preeminent researchers to tackle these problems,” Holzinger said. “There’s a real opportunity to make important advances.”

The cooperative agreement represents a significant expansion of the relationship between Smead Aerospace and the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate. Holzinger said the project will include ongoing collaboration and could evolve and change as the research develops.

“The region in, around, and affected by the Earth-Moon-Sun system has drastically increased in commercial activity and Department of Defense mission relevance over the last few years,” Holzinger said. “There are more and more missions going to the Moon – not just our missions but India, China, and Europe as well. That means there needs to be some sensible tracking and detection of what’s going on out there and this project addresses that crucial need directly.”

Holzinger said this area, called space domain awareness, is important for national defense and to ensure spaceflight safety and responsible behavior. Currently, the Air Force maintains tracking networks to actively catalog space vehicles to avoid collisions. However, these systems only work for spacecraft orbiting the Earth, not the Moon, and growing traffic in orbit around Earth has made collision avoidance increasingly complicated.

NASA Orbital Debris Program illustration of satellites and space debris in low Earth orbit.

To address this, the team will work to develop a framework for spacecraft to make autonomous maneuvering decisions without human input by using artificial intelligence both for collision avoidance and to execute complex tasks, said Morteza Lahijanian, an assistant professor in Smead Aerospace and a member of the project team.

“This research will teach us how to go about designing safe autonomy for complex systems, especially in a setting where multiple space vehicles need to cooperate,” said Lahijanian. “This research can lead to designing fully autonomous spacecraft that we can trust, and would eliminate the role of humans who are typically the source of errors in the design or execution of missions.”

The work also aims to better understand the unique orbital dynamics surrounding the Moon to help future researchers and commercial projects, said Holzinger.

“We’re really interested in what sorts of repeating natural orbits are best for various applications and what are the best ways to get to and from those orbits,” Holzinger said. “We want to develop design tools so mission engineers can more easily answer these questions. Right now there are not enough experts that can do that work to meet the need.”

A third goal for the cooperative agreement aims to advance the science of hypersonic vehicles. Hypersonics is an active area of research around the world for national defense purposes.

During hypersonic flight, a vehicle and the gasses surrounding it can reach thousands of degrees, triggering chemical reactions. The team hopes to develop and validate models that will ensure hypersonic vehicle signatures, heat flux, and materials response can be predicted with minimal uncertainty.

In addition to Holzinger and Lahijanian, additional CU Boulder faculty partners include professors Natasha Bosanac, Tim Minton, Hanspeter Schaub, and Dan Scheeres.

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Aerospace PhD research proposes better way to keep astronauts breathing in space

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 15:42:31 +0000

Aerospace PhD research proposes better way to keep astronauts breathing in space Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/08/2022 - 09:42

Jeff Zehnder

Clockwise from top left: Álvaro Romero-Calvo, Katharina Brinkert, Ömer Akay, and Hanspeter Schaub.

Álvaro Romero-Calvo (AeroEngr PhD’22) is proposing a potentially better way to make oxygen for astronauts in space – using magnetism.

Romero-Calvo, a recent PhD graduate from the University of Colorado Boulder, is part of an international team publishing new research on magnetic phase separation in microgravity in Nature’s affiliated npj Microgravity journal.

Co-authors on the paper, which expands on a portion of Romero-Calvo’s doctoral dissertation, include his thesis advisor CU Boulder aerospace professor Hanspeter Schaub, Ömer Akay of Freie Universität Berlin in Germany, and Katharina Brinkert of the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.

Keeping astronauts breathing aboard the International Space Station and other space vehicles is a complicated and costly process. As humans plan future missions to the Moon or Mars better technology will be needed.

“On the International Space Station, oxygen is generated using an electrolytic cell that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, but then you have to get those gasses out of the system,” Romero-Calvo said. “A relatively recent analysis from a researcher at NASA Ames concluded that adapting the same architecture on a trip to Mars would have such significant mass and reliability penalties that it wouldn’t make any sense to use.”

The underlying issue is buoyancy.

“In space, a bubble of gas in a liquid will remain suspended there and start mixing in unwanted ways. It doesn’t float to the surface,” Romero-Calvo said.

Imagine a glass of fizzy soda. On Earth, the bubbles of CO₂ quickly float to the top, but in the absence of gravity, those bubbles have nowhere to go. They instead stay suspended in the liquid.

NASA currently uses centrifuges to force the gasses out, but those machines are large and require significant mass, power, and maintenance. Meanwhile, the team has conducted experiments demonstrating magnets could achieve the same results in some cases.

“You don’t need power. You don’t need centrifuges. Instead, it is a completely passive system,” he said.

Although diamagnetic forces are well known and understood, their use by engineers in space applications have not been fully explored because gravity makes the technology difficult to demonstrate on Earth.

Looking up into the ZARM droptower. Photo copyright ZARM, University of Bremen.

Enter the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) in Germany. There, Brinkert, who has ongoing research funded by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), led the team in successful experimental tests at a special drop tower facility that simulates microgravity conditions.

Romero-Calvo said the results of the tests surprised attendees.

“People who had been working there 20-30 years and genuinely know everything about space engineering didn’t realize it was possible. I’ve talked with full professors who were not aware of this phenomenon. If anything, it highlights the importance of getting this research out about magnetic phase separation as an option,” Romero-Calvo said.

The research could open up new avenues for scientists and engineers developing oxygen systems as well as other space research involving liquid-to-gas phase changes.

Schaub said the research has significant future potential.

“After years of analytical and computational research, being able to use this amazing drop tower in Germany provided concrete proof that this concept will function in the zero-g space environment. We are excited now to test this concept in short sub-orbital flights,” Schaub said.

Romero-Calvo expects to continue this research himself in the future. He was recently hired as a new assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and is preparing to build up a laboratory there to explore further possibilities for magnetic phase separation.

“This is a great time for microgravity research,” he said. “So many private aerospace companies are now offering so many flight opportunities that developing space technology is easier than ever. I’m excited to be a part of this new paradigm that is already changing the way we conduct space research."

Read the full paper at npj Microgravity

Álvaro Romero-Calvo (AeroEngr PhD’22) is proposing a potentially better way to make oxygen for astronauts in space – using magnetism. Romero-Calvo, a recent PhD graduate from the University of Colorado Boulder, is part of an international team...

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