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Three students from the research group received rewards at the annual department ceremony:

Giusy Falcone – Graduate Student Service Award, awarded to a student for service to the unit, beyond merely their academic and research responsibilities

Jack Joshi – Robert W. McCloy Memorial Award, presented to a junior or first-semester senior student in recognition of outstanding academic performance

Marta Cortinovis – American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Scholastic Achievement Award, awarded to the senior graduating with the highest GPA

More information available here: https://aerospace.illinois.edu/news/46789

Giusy Falcone successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation, titled “Autonomous Guidance and Decision-Making for Planetary Aerobraking,” on March 28. Congratulations, Dr. Falcone!

Lots of exciting things have been happening in the group in the past year, they just haven’t shown up here. Until now.

• May 2021: Daniel Engel received the NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity award.
• Aug. 2021: Grace Calkins and Tiger Hou join the group as graduate students. Welcome Grace and Tiger!
• Jun. 2021: Kevin Lohan successfully defends his Ph.D. thesis. Congratulations, Kevin!
• Nov. 2021: Nate Skolnik successfully defends his Ph.D. thesis. Congratulations, Nate!
• Jan. 2022: the research group presents 8 different technical papers at the AIAA SciTech Forum, a new record for us.
• Jan. 2022: Destiny Fawley passes the Ph.D. qualifying exam. Congratulations, Destiny!

Congratulations to Nicholas Zuiker, who passed the PhD Qualifying Exam in Space Systems. Nick will continue his work adapting linear covariance analysis techniques to hypersonic systems for his PhD research.

The group welcomes two new graduate students this fall: Destiny Fawley and Daniel Engel. Both worked in the group as undergradute researchers and completed their B.S. in aerospace engineering in May 2020. Destiny’s graduate research on magnetohydrodynamic control systems for aeroassist vehicles is funded by a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity grant. Daniel’s research will focus on evaluating aerodynamic flaps for trajectory control during planetary entry.

Congratulations to Nick Zuiker and Michelle McClary who completed their master’s degrees in August!

Due to the Soyuz launch failure in late 2018, SASSI2 was de-manifested from NG-10 and will instead launch on NG-11. The current launch date for NG-11 is April 17, 2019; SASSI2 will be re-delivered to the launch integrator in late March.

Congratulations to Jimmy Williams, who passed the Ph.D. qualifying exam in space systems in January 2019.

The Student Aerothermal Spectrometer Satellite of Illinois and Indiana (SASSI2) has been successfully delivered to the launch integrator. SASSI2 will launch as a secondary payload on NG-10, an Antares-Cygnus ISS resupply mission that will launch from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. SASSI2 will be attached directly to the Antares upper stage, a first for smallsat launch. Launch is currently planned for Nov. 15.

Two new M.S. students have joined the Putnam Research Group: Michelle McClary and Nick Zuiker. Michelle joins the group after completing her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at University of Illinois Chicago. Nick finished his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering at UIUC in May of 2018 and will continue as the team lead for SASSI2.