Congratulations to Chris Tanner for passing the Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering Ph.D. qualifying exams in March 2008.

Ian Clark, Allison Hutchings, Chris Tanner and Robert Braun received the Best Paper Award at the 2008 IEEE Aerospace Conference for their paper entitled, "Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators for Use on Future Robotic Missions to Mars."

The Georgia Tech Pharos team of Jonathan Sharma, Jarret Lafleur, Jillian Apa, Kreston Barron, Nilesh Shah, and Jonathan Townley was awarded 1st place and $5,000 in the Planetary Society's Apophis Mission Design Competition for their design of a mission and flight system to rendezvous with the near-Earth asteroid Apophis. This competition received 37 mission proposals from 20 countries on 6 continents. Dr. Braun and Dr. Saleh served as the team's class instructors

A Georgia Tech team of students, led by Professor Ryan Russell, earned third place in the 3rd Global Trajectory Optimization Competition. This yearly competition pits the best minds in orbital mechanics on a difficult interplanetary mission design problem requiring a globally optimum solution. The 2007 competition focused on design of a low-thrust, multiple near-Earth asteroid rendezvous mission with return to the Earth. Twenty-six teams, including many from professional organizations, declared their intent to enter this competition. First place was won by CNES, second place by JPL. Congratulations to the entire Georgia Tech student team.

Congratulations to SSDL graduate students Tim Kokan, Reuben Rohrschneider, Dave Young and Zack Krevor who each completed their Ph.D. in 2007.

SSDL graduate student, Mike Grant was awarded first place in the AIAA student paper competition at this year's Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Conference and Exhibit (August 20-23, 2007 in Hilton Head, SC). His paper, AIAA 2007-6393, is entitled, "Mars Science Laboratory Entry Optimization Using Particle Swarm Methodology," and reports on research he conducted in collaboration with personnel at the NASA Johnson Space Center.

SSDL graduate students Ian Clark, John Theisinger, and Chris Tanner and SSDL undergraduate student Amanda Verges each won student paper or poster awards at the 5th International Planetary Probe Workshop in Bordeaux, France.

The Georgia Tech Heavy MEDL team of Chris Tanner, Mike Grant, Shawn Johnson, Kathy Goben and Ryan Mitchell was awarded first place in the NASA Fundamental Aeronautics Program University Student Competition on the subject of Mars entry, descent and landing. Dr. Braun and Dr. Cruz served as the team’s class instructors.

The Georgia Tech Mars Heavy-Payload Entry, Descent and Landing Team of Ashley Korzun, Greg Dubos, Curtis Iwata, Ben Stahl and John Quicksall was awarded third place in the NASA Fundamental Aeronautics Program University Student Competition on the subject of Mars entry, descent and landing. Dr. Braun and Dr. Cruz served as the team’s class instructors.

The Georgia Tech Pharos Team of Jillian Apa, Kreston Barron, Jarret Lafleur, Nilesh Shah, Jonathan Sharma and Jonathan Townley was awarded 2nd place in the NASA ESMD Space Grant Systems Engineering Paper Competition for their mission and flight system concept to explore the near-Earth asteroid Apophis. Dr. Braun and Dr. Saleh served as the team’s class instructors.

The Georgia Tech ASTI Team of Amanda Verges, Adam Maser, Matt Panaro, Bala Radharamanan, and Masa Yano was awarded 1st place in the 2007 AIAA Undergraduate Space Systems Design Competition for their mission and flight system concept to explore the near-Earth asteroid Apophis. Dr. Braun and Dr. Saleh served as the team’s class instructors.

The Georgia Tech South Team of Kevin Flaherty, Mike Grant , Ashley Korzun, Ben Stahl and Brad Steinfeldt was awarded third place in the NASA ESMD Space Grant Systems Engineering Paper Competition for their human Mars mission architecture. Dr. Wilhite served as the team’s class instructor.

In 2008, SSDL faculty and/or graduate students will be giving technical presentations on our work at the IEEE Aerospace Conference (Big Sky, MT), the 6 th International Planetary Probe Workshop (Atlanta, GA), the AIAA Atmospheric Flight Mechanics, GN&C and AAS Astrodynamics Conferences (Honolulu, HI), the AIAA Space 2008 Conference (San Diego, CA), the 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference (Victoria, B.C., Canada) and the IAF Congress (Glasgow, Scotland).

In 2007, SSDL graduate students accepted employment offers from Lockheed Martin Space Systems,  Northrup-Grumman Corporation, Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and Pratt & Whitney.