David Spencer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | David Allen Spencer November 21, 1965 United States, Indiana |
| Nationality | American |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Aerospace engineering |
| Institutions | Caltech/Jet Propulsion Lab Purdue University The Planetary Society |
David A. Spencer is the Mars Sample Return Campaign Mission Manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As an aerospace engineer, Spencer designs and operates planetary spacecraft. [1] [2]
Spencer received B.S. and M.S. degrees in aeronautics and astronautics from Purdue University in W. Lafayette, Indiana. He earned his Ph.D. from the Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, completing a dissertation on automated proximity operations using relative orbital elements. [3]
Spencer worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1991 through 2008. [4] He served on the mission design and navigation team for the TOPEX/Poseidon mission, and he was the lead mission designer for Mars Pathfinder, responsible for the design of the interplanetary transfer and the entry, descent and landing (EDL) trajectory. [5] Spencer served as the mission manager for NASA's Mars Odyssey from 1997-2002, and Deep Impact from 2004-2005, leading the mission design and operations for the projects. He was the deputy project manager for the Phoenix Mars Lander, with a focus on EDL and surface operations. Spencer left JPL in 2008 to join the Aerospace Engineering faculty at Georgia Tech.
At Georgia Tech, Spencer founded the Center for Space Systems, and was the Co-Director of the Space Systems Design Laboratory, a multi-disciplinary research and educational organization dedicated to the design, development and operations of advanced space systems and technologies. He initiated a small satellite program at Georgia Tech, establishing facilities for satellite fabrication, testing, tracking and operations. Spencer transitioned from Georgia Tech in 2016 to join the faculty of the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University, where he conducted research on small satellite applications, proximity operations, and aeroassist technologies. He led the Purdue Engineering Initiative on cislunar space, with the goal of expanding the orbital economy to encompass the cislunar environment.
Spencer served as mission manager for The Planetary Society's LightSail 1 spacecraft, leading the mission design and system engineering of the solar sail demonstration project. LightSail 1 was launched on May 20, 2015. [6] Spencer led the team through a successful solar sail deployment almost a month later, before LightSail 1 reentered Earth's atmosphere. [7] Spencer is the project manager for a second LightSail spacecraft, LightSail 2, launched in 2019. [8] LightSail 2 was deployed into orbit by the Prox-1 spacecraft developed by Spencer and students at Georgia Tech. [9] LightSail 2 successfully demonstrated controlled solar sailing in Earth orbit. [10] He is the Founder and CEO of the 2019 startup Vestigo Aerospace, a space technology company that markets dragsails for the deorbit of space vehicles. Vestigo Aerospace incorporated in 2022 and received $375,000 in seed funding from strategic investment firm Manhattan West.
Spencer returned to JPL in 2020 to become the Mission System Manager for the Mars Sample Return Campaign, with the objective to return a geologically diverse set of Mars samples for Earth-based laboratory analysis. The Mars Sample Return Campaign is a joint effort between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Interplanetary spaceflight or interplanetary travel is the crewed or uncrewed travel between stars and planets, usually within a single planetary system. In practice, spaceflights of this type are confined to travel between the planets of the Solar System. Uncrewed space probes have flown to all the observed planets in the Solar System as well as to dwarf planets Pluto and Ceres, and several asteroids. Orbiters and landers return more information than fly-by missions. Crewed flights have landed on the Moon and have been planned, from time to time, for Mars, Venus and Mercury. While many scientists appreciate the knowledge value that uncrewed flights provide, the value of crewed missions is more controversial. Science fiction writers propose a number of benefits, including the mining of asteroids, access to solar power, and room for colonization in the event of an Earth catastrophe.
Spacecraft propulsion is any method used to accelerate spacecraft and artificial satellites. In-space propulsion exclusively deals with propulsion systems used in the vacuum of space and should not be confused with space launch or atmospheric entry.
Solar sails are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigation have been proposed since the 1980s. The first spacecraft to make use of the technology was IKAROS, launched in 2010.
Geoffrey Alan Landis is an American aerospace engineer and author, working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on planetary exploration, interstellar propulsion, solar power and photovoltaics. He holds nine patents, primarily in the field of improvements to solar cells and photovoltaic devices and has given presentations and commentary on the possibilities for interstellar travel and construction of bases on the Moon, Mars, and Venus.
Aerobraking is a spaceflight maneuver that reduces the high point of an elliptical orbit (apoapsis) by flying the vehicle through the atmosphere at the low point of the orbit (periapsis). The resulting drag slows the spacecraft. Aerobraking is used when a spacecraft requires a low orbit after arriving at a body with an atmosphere, as it requires less fuel than using propulsion to slow down.
The Discovery Program is a series of Solar System exploration missions funded by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through its Planetary Missions Program Office. The cost of each mission is capped at a lower level than missions from NASA's New Frontiers or Flagship Programs. As a result, Discovery missions tend to be more focused on a specific scientific goal rather than serving a general purpose.
A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of 10 cm (3.9 in) cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than 2 kg (4.4 lb) per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats are put into orbit by deployers on the International Space Station, or launched as secondary payloads on a launch vehicle. As of August 2021, more than 1,600 CubeSats have been launched.
Aerocapture is an orbital transfer maneuver in which a spacecraft uses aerodynamic drag force from a single pass through a planetary atmosphere to decelerate and achieve orbit insertion.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the aerospace field:
Kathleen Howell is an American scientist and aerospace engineer known for her contributions to dynamical systems theory applied to spacecraft trajectory design which led to the use of halo orbit in multiple NASA space missions. She is currently the Hsu Lo Distinguished Professor at Purdue University in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In acknowledgment of her many achievements, Discover magazine recognized her in 2002 as one of the 50 most important women in science.
Randii Ray Wessen is an American astronautics systems engineer specifically involved in planetary exploration, experimental economist, and writer. Dr. Wessen has been an employee of the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1984. He is currently the A-Team Lead Study Architect for JPL's Innovation Foundry. On the side, Wessen works with Dr. David Porter of Chapman University in the field of Experimental Economics, where they are designing a system to help allocate resources for building instruments on robotic deep space planetary spacecraft. This proposed system will build on the success of the Cassini Resource Exchange and be applied to NASA's Outer Planet Flagship Missions.
Robert David Braun is an American aerospace engineer and academic. He has served as the dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, the David and Andrew Lewis Professor of Space Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the NASA Chief Technologist. Currently, Dr. Braun is the Space Sector Head at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
The Near-Earth Asteroid Scout was a mission by NASA to develop a controllable low-cost CubeSat solar sail spacecraft capable of encountering near-Earth asteroids (NEA). NEA Scout was one of ten CubeSats launched into a heliocentric orbit on Artemis 1, the maiden flight of the Space Launch System, on 16 November 2022.
Lunar Flashlight is a low-cost CubeSat lunar orbiter mission to explore, locate, and estimate size and composition of water ice deposits on the Moon for future exploitation by robots or humans.
James Michael Longuski is an American scientist, inventor, writer, and educator known for his contributions to astrodynamics and space mission design. After working as a space mission designer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for NASA, Longuski has served as a professor at Purdue University School of Aeronautics and Astronautics since 1988.
Moriba Kemessia Jah is an American space scientist and aerospace engineer who describes himself as a "space environmentalist", specializing in orbit determination and prediction, especially as related to space situational awareness and space traffic monitoring. He is currently an associate professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin. Jah previously worked as a spacecraft navigator at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he was a navigator for the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Exploration Rover, and his last mission was the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. He is a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety and, the Royal Astronomical Society. Jah was also selected into the 10th anniversary class of TED Fellows and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2022. He also was selected into the AIAA class of Fellows and Honorary Fellows in the year of the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11. The AIAA "confers the distinction of Fellow upon individuals in recognition of their notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics."
Swati Mohan is an American aerospace engineer and was the Guidance and Controls Operations Lead on the NASA Mars 2020 mission.
David Y. Oh is an American spacecraft systems engineer and expert in electric propulsion. Oh currently works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as the NASA Psyche mission Project Systems Engineering Manager. Prior to his role on Psyche, he was the cross-cutting phase lead and lead flight director for the NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission and was recognized in popular media for living on Mars time with his family during the month following the landing of the Curiosity rover.