In spacecraft propulsion, a Hall-effect thruster (HET) is a type of ion thruster in which the propellant is accelerated by an electric field. Hall-effect thrusters are sometimes referred to as Hall thrusters or Hall-current thrusters. Hall-effect thrusters use a magnetic field to limit the electrons' axial motion and then use them to ionize propellant, efficiently accelerate the ions to produce thrust, and neutralize the ions in the plume. The Hall-effect thruster is classed as a moderate specific impulse space propulsion technology and has benefited from considerable theoretical and experimental research since the 1960s.
Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Navy Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into low Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket. as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida.
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research and development detachment of the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of direct-energy based aerospace warfighting technologies, planning and executing the Air Force science and technology program, and providing warfighting capabilities to United States air, space, and cyberspace forces. It controls the entire Air Force science and technology research budget which was $2.4 billion in 2006.
FalconSAT is the United States Air Force Academy's (USAFA) small satellite engineering program. Satellites are designed, built, tested, and operated by Academy cadets. The project is administered by the USAFA Space Systems Research Center under the direction of the Department of Astronautics. Most of the cadets who work on the project are pursuing a bachelor of science degree in astronautical engineering, although students from other disciplines join the project.
Robert C. Michelson is an American engineer and academic who invented the entomopter, a biologically inspired flapping-winged aerial robot, and who established the International Aerial Robotics Competition. Michelson's career began at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He later became a member of the research faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the author of three U.S. patents and over 100 journal papers, book chapters and reports. Michelson is the recipient of the 1998 AUVSI Pioneer Award and the 2001 Pirelli Award for the diffusion of scientific culture as well as the first Top Pirelli Prize.
The Israel Space Agency is a governmental body, a part of Israel's Ministry of Science and Technology, that coordinates all Israeli space research programs with scientific and commercial goals.
USA-165 or XSS-11 is a small, washing-machine-sized, low-cost spacecraft developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate to test technology for proximity operations. In particular, the satellite was designed to demonstrate "autonomous rendezvous and proximity maneuvers." In other words, it would approach, investigate, and photograph other spacecraft in Earth orbit. It would help test the feasibility of in-space inspection and repair. The spacecraft was also designed to test systems that would allow the spacecraft to maneuver autonomously.
Jerome Pearson was an American engineer and space scientist best known for his work on space elevators, including a lunar space elevator. He was president of STAR, Inc., and has developed aircraft and spacecraft technology for the United States Air Force, DARPA, and NASA. He held several patents and was the author of nearly 100 publications in aircraft, spacecraft, electrodynamic tethers, SETI, and global climate control.
The University Nanosat Program is a satellite design and fabrication competition for universities. It is jointly administered by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the Space Development and Test Wing and the AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate's Spacecraft Technology division. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center was involved from the program inception through Nanosat-3.
The Micro-satellite Technology Experiment (MiTEx) is a microsatellite-based mission launched into geosynchronous orbit 21 June 2006 aboard a Delta II rocket. The USAF described the mission as a joint "technology demonstration" mission for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the United States Air Force (USAF) and the United States Navy.
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 NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) is responsible for procurement of launch services for NASA uncrewed missions and oversight of launch integration and launch preparation activity, providing added quality and mission assurance to meet program objectives. LSP operates under the NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD).
Miniature Sensor Technology Integration-3 (MSTI-3) was a technology demonstration satellite operated by the United States Air Force. It was equipped with two infrared cameras and one visible light camera, designed to survey Earth's surface features and characterize their appearance in infrared wavelengths. MSTI-3 launched on 17 May 1996 aboard an Orbital Sciences Pegasus rocket.
Busek Company Incorporated is an American spacecraft propulsion company that builds thrusters, electronics, and various systems for spacecraft.
LGarde, also L'Garde or L·Garde, is an American aerospace and defense technology company founded in 1971 in Orange County, CA and is the primary contractor for the Sunjammer spacecraft, the world largest solar sail. The company was an early pioneer of thin-skinned, multi-task inflatable structures used in various military and space applications. At the height of the Cold War, L·Garde developed and manufactured inflatable targets and decoy systems for U.S. military defense, and countermeasure systems for the Strategic Defense Initiative. After the Cold-War, the company used the technologies and manufacturing techniques it had developed to land a contract to design and build the inflatable antenna experiment and other thin-film inflatable space structures using its unique application of rigidizable tube technology. The company's unusual name is an acronym formed by the initials of the founding partners: Bill Larkin, Gayle Bilyeu, Alan Hirasuna, Rich Walstrom, Don Davis. The "E" comes from the Latin term "et al" as a tip to other partners and original employees of the company.
The Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) was a NASA technology demonstrator project that tested a less toxic and higher performance/efficiency chemical propellant for next-generation launch vehicles and CubeSat spacecraft. When compared to the present high-thrust and high-performance industry standard for orbital maneuvering systems, which for decades, have exclusively been reliant upon toxic hydrazine based propellant formulations, the "greener" hydroxylammonium nitrate (HAN) monopropellant offers many advantages for future satellites, including longer mission durations, additional maneuverability, increased payload space and simplified launch processing. The GPIM was managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and was part of NASA's Technology Demonstration Mission Program within the Space Technology Mission Directorate.
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.
The Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) CubeSat was the first launched National Aeronautics and Space Administration Science Mission Directorate CubeSat with a science mission. It was designed, built, and operated primarily by students at the University of Colorado Boulder with professional mentorship and involvement from professors, scientists, and engineers in the Aerospace Engineering Sciences department and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, as well as Southwest Research Institute, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research's High Altitude Observatory. The mission principal investigator is Dr. Thomas N. Woods and co-investigators are Dr. Amir Caspi, Dr. Phil Chamberlin, Dr. Andrew Jones, Rick Kohnert, Professor Xinlin Li, Professor Scott Palo, and Dr. Stanley Solomon. The student lead was Dr. James Paul Mason, who has since become a Co-I for the second flight model of MinXSS.
The University of Georgia Small Satellite Research Laboratory (SSRL) is a research laboratory which builds CubeSats for Earth observation.
David W. Miller is an American aerospace engineer who is the current Jerome Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an elected Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics since 2015. He is currently on a leave of absence from MIT to be a VP and the Chief Technology Officer to The Aerospace Corporation. He has worked on multiple NASA projects and served as NASA Chief Technologist.
