It has been an interesting year with most in-person events canceled in 2020. AIAA, like many other organizations, quickly adapted to a virtual environment. The Foundation’s mission to inspire the next generation of aerospace professionals became even more important.
Here are a few ways the Foundation focused its efforts to assist students and educators:
• Participated in Science is Cool Virtual Unconference to promote free educator resources available through the Foundation.
• Partnered with Higher Orbits to bring space and STEM/STEAM to the homes of students across the country during these challenging times through the Higher Orbits Space at Home initiative.
• Honored 30 Diversity Scholars at the inaugural virtual ASCEND event
• Distributed 41 classroom grants affecting 26,261 students
• Presented 3 K–12 Educator Achievement Awards
• Presented 22 undergraduate scholarships and graduate awards to deserving students to further their education
In 2021, the Foundation will celebrate its 25th anniversary. With your continued assistance, we are looking forward to making an even bigger impact next year!
For more information about the AIAA Foundation, visit aiaa.org/Foundation. Please reach out to Foundation Director Alex D’Imperio at AlexandraD@aiaa.org about the Foundation’s goal of impacting one million students and becoming involved or donating to the AIAA Foundation.
Thursday, 21 January 2021, 1600 hrs ET
Join us as we recognize our Class of 2021 AIAA Associate Fellows at the AIAA Associate Fellows Induction Ceremony, held during the virtual 2021 AIAA SciTech Forum. The new Associate Fellows will be honored for their accomplishments in engineering or scientific work, outstanding merit, and contributions to the art, science, or technology of aeronautics or astronautics. To register, please visit aiaa.org/SciTech/program/recognition. For more information about the Class of 2021, please visit aiaa.org/Associate Fellows2021.
The AIAA Hampton Roads Section (HRS) Young Professionals Committee has organized a new series of Technical Excellence Lectures to highlight the significant technical contributions of AIAA HRS Young Professionals. Their inaugural lecture was held on 7 October in a virtual lunch & learn format featuring the work of the 2020 Laurence Bement Young Professionals Paper Competition Winner, Amanda Chou.
Dr. Chou is a research engineer in the Flow Physics & Control Branch at NASA Langley Research Center. Her research has primarily focused on using experiments to help develop tools in the physical modeling of high-speed laminar-turbulent transition. Dr. Chou received her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Purdue University.
Dr. Chou presented her research on the topic of “Transition Due to Patterns of Roughness on a Supersonic Flat Plate,” followed by a Q&A session. Approximately 50 people attended the webinar, and the presentation was well received.
Be more than just another resume, receive dedicated time with employers looking to hire at the AIAA Virtual Career Fairs. Speak directly with recruiters through private one-on-one online chats.
Student Virtual Career Fair
15 December, 1200–1500 hrs ET USA
aiaa.org/studentcareerfair
Employers: Showcase your company, opportunities, and benefits to qualified candidates in one-on-one chats via text, audio, and video. Corporate members receive discounted pricing.
Design of Rockets and Space Launch Vehicles
by Don Edberg and Willie Costa
A timely and comprehensive exposé of important concepts and applications that provides enhanced understanding and exposure to practical aspects of design, engineering, manufacturing, and testing. Although it is primarily intended for readers with at least a third-year level knowledge of aerospace engineering, mathematics, and physics, because it contains many applications and step-by-step illustrated examples along with photographs or line drawings of actual hardware, it will also be of interest to practicing engineers, technical managers, and others who are interested in how rockets work in either the big picture sense, or in areas other than one’s specialty. This book will answer many questions as to “why things are done this way.”
Active Spanwise Lift Control: A Distributed Parameter Approach
by Joaquim Neto Dias and James E. Hubbard Jr.
This book presents a novel approach to tackle the gust alleviation problem. The authors directly address the spanwise behavior of aerodynamic loads. Because the gust loads are mainly caused by disturbances in the spanwise lift, the aim is at controlling the shape of the lift distribution profile along the span. Therefore, this distributed approach allows control of the loads at all points of the wing structure. Moreover, using modal decomposition concepts, the control surfaces can be designed to maximize controllability of the most relevant aerodynamic modes, which naturally results in lower actuator rate requirements. This methodology described in the book is used to synthesize regulators, to suppress gust disturbances in lift distribution, and trackers, to dynamically follow any desired reference lift profile. A special observer structure decouples the gust input from the state estimation process and provides estimates for the gust amplitude along time, thus rendering the gust measurements ahead of the aircraft unnecessary.
Special Section in AIAA Journal
Look for the special section on the “Recent Progress on Rotating Detonation and its Application,” which will be included in the December issue (Guest Editors: Bing Wang, Tsinghua University, People’s Republic of China, and Jian-Ping Wang, Peking University, People’s Republic of China).
Special Issue on “Machine Learning in Aerospace”
The Journal of Aerospace Information Systems intends to publish a special issue on Machine Learning in Aerospace. This collection will include high-quality articles describing emerging methods and results of applying machine learning to aerospace-related fields ranging from run-time perception and decision systems to single and multi-vehicle control. While most developments reported will tailor emerging ML approaches to domain-specific applications, there are also meaningful issues to address, when handling large-scale aerospace systems, that require fundamental advancement in ML methodologies. This special issue aims at being a medium to have a wide scope of recent efforts in such problems.
Guidelines can be found in the full Call for Papers on the JAIS page in Aerospace Research Central: arc.aiaa.org/sda/1141/JAIS_Special_Issue_CFP_MachineLearninginAerospace.pdf.
Submission Deadline: 15 January 2021. Anticipated Publication Date: August 2021.
Special Issue on Systems Engineering’s Top Space Challenges
The Journal of Aerospace Information Systems intends to publish a special issue on Systems Engineering’s Top Space Challenges. This issue will tackle four pressing, space-related Systems Engineering challenges that demand cross-disciplinary solutions.
Systems Engineering Space Challenges
1. Should mass still be a driver for most space missions?
2. Are existing required design margins in handbooks and standards adequate for modern space systems?
3. Should a systems engineering glossary/definitions/ontology be enforced to support the development of a space system?
4. Do space engineers need to learn Model-Based Systems Engineering to successfully adopt Digital Engineering?
Authors need not respond directly to one of the Systems Engineering challenges if the manuscript relates to the challenges or is in the spirit of solving complex Systems Engineering problems.
Submission Deadline: 1 March 2021 Anticipated Publication Date:
December 2021
More info: arc.aiaa.org/sda/1141/JAISSpecialIssueCallforPapers-SEChallenges.pdf
AIAA has published over 300 books and almost 200,000 technical articles. AIAA’s current publications include eight technical journals, three book series, national and international standards documents, a growing number of eBooks and other electronic products, and a full-service, interactive website. For the most authoritative technical publications, go to ARC (arc.aiaa.org).
George P. Sutton, former chief scientist of DARPA and Executive Director of Rocketdyne, whose seminal book on rocket propulsion guided rocket scientists across 9 editions and multiple generations, died on 15 October. He was 100 years old.
Sutton received a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, followed by an M.S. degree and postgraduate work. In 1943, he joined the Aerojet Corporation where he initially worked directly with the renowned Aeronautics Professor Theodore von Kármán in analyzing the effects of hot air boundary layers or the heating of liquid rocket propellants in the tanks of flying large diameter vehicles, and he developed high pressure, high frequency rocket propulsion pressure pick-up for measuring combustion vibration and propellant oscillations. Sutton was in charge of making a U.S. copy of the German A-4 rocket engine used in the German V2 missile. He also designed, built, and tested a new 75,000 lb. thrust chamber, the largest U.S. rocket engine at the time.
When Aerojet became Rocketdyne, Sutton’s work continued in various position with responsibilities to develop and test different rocket engines until 1972. He became the executive director of Engineering and assistant to the president.
Sutton’s achievements crossed industry, government, and academia. In government, Sutton worked as the chief scientist of the DARPA and as DARPA deputy director. There he started the development of several large liquid propellant rocket engines for eventual applications in long range ballistic missiles. He served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the U.S. Air Force for 11 years and was awarded the Air Force’s Silver Civilian Medal for his contributions.
He also worked for about 10 years at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as an associate program leader on the Machine Tool Task Force (5 Volumes of Advanced Precision Technology of Machine Tools) and as an assistant division leader in Manufacturing Technology, as well assuming responsibility for various rocket propulsion projects.
In academics, Sutton accepted an appointment as the Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at MIT in 1958–1959. He was also a member of the mechanical engineering faculty of the California Institute of Technology for four years and taught several analytical courses and student laboratory lessons and served as a guest lecturer at several universities as well as at company and government laboratories.
Sutton was an AIAA Fellow and past president of the American Rocket Society (ARS), one of the predecessor societies that merged to create AIAA. Sutton joined the ARS in 1947 and served as its president in 1959. He was elected as a Fellow in 1960. He also was a founder of the Southern California Section. He received the Pendray Aerospace Literature Award from ARS in 1951 and again in 2002 from AIAA for his outstanding contributions to aeronautical and astronautical literature. Rocket Propulsion Elements is his most renowned work – no other aerospace books have evolved and been updated with as many editions. In 2006, he published History of Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines with AIAA. This text tells the story of how technological advances were made, who made them happen, and the different kinds of vehicles that have been propelled by liquid propellant rocket engines. He was a prolific author, publishing dozens of technical articles in AIAA publications and other professional journals and magazines.
Dr. Irving Statler died on 25 June. He was 96.
In 1945, Statler graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering and in Engineering Mathematics. He then served in the military spending time as an engineering aide in the Compressibility Unit at the Aerodynamics Branch, Aircraft Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB.
In 1946, Dr. Statler joined the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory (CAL) where, over 24 years, he held positions in the Flight Research Department, as head of the Applied Mechanics Department, and as principal scientist of the Aero-sciences Division. He took a leave of absence from 1953 to 1955 to attend the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) from which he was awarded a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering and Mathematics in 1956. His dissertation was on development of three-dimensional, compressible, subsonic, unsteady-wing theory and examining importance of unsteady aerodynamic effects to prediction of dynamic stability characteristics of aircraft. While at Cal Tech, Dr. Statler was a senior research engineer in the Research Analysis Section of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
In 1970, Dr. Statler left CAL to become the director, Aeromechanics Laboratory, U.S. Army Aviation Systems Command’s Research and Technology Laboratories. For 15 years he led rotorcraft research in aerodynamics and flight controls under a unique Army-NASA partnership at NASA Ames Research Center. This collaboration resulted in the tiltrotor technology that led to the revolutionary V-22 Osprey VTOL aircraft and he was also instrumental in initiating multiple international R&D agreements with leading aerospace laboratories around the world.
In 1985 Dr. Statler left the Army to accept the appointment as director, Advisory Group for Aerospace R&D (AGARD) to the NATO Military Committee in Paris. After his three-year assignment with AGARD ended in 1988, he embarked on a new career in Human Factors research. He joined NASA Ames Research Center as a principal engineer, Aerospace Human Factors Research Division. He became head of the Office of Space Human Factors and from 1992 to 1994, he served as chief of the Human Factors Research Division.
Dr. Statler was project manager of a series of projects to develop automated methodologies for analyzing diverse data sources to enable safety analysts in the air transportation industry to obtain reliable information on events or trends in daily operations that could compromise the safety of the system. His group developed and led a large innovative project called Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS) to monitor commercial aircraft continuously in nearly real time. APMS evolved into an even larger project called Aviation System Monitoring and Modeling (ASMM) under NASA’s Aviation Safety Program. The technology developed under the ASMM project for extracting and merging information from very large dispersed data sources, Dr. Statler’s group demonstrated the concept of a Distributed National FOQA Archive (DNFA) with data from 10 airlines. The DNFA was handed off to the FAA.
Dr. Statler retired in 2008 after 20 years with NASA, but volunteered as an Ames Associate until 2014, when he was 90 years old.
Over the course of his career Dr. Statler was honored with many awards including the Ministry of Defense of France La Médaille de l’Aéronautique (1986), the NATO Military Committee Chairman’s Medal (1988), the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal (2006), and the FAA’s Excellence in Aviation Research Award (2009). He was recognized with AIAA’s International Cooperation Award in 1992 for “two decades of sustained, notable contributions to the initiation and management of highly-productive collaborative, multi-national aeronautics research programs and scientific exchanges involving the United States, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and the NATO/AGARD community.”
During his career, Dr. Statler was a member of the American Helicopter Society and a Fellow of AIAA, the Royal Aeronautical Society, AAAS, and the German Aerospace Society. Dr. Statler authored or co-authored over 70 publications and presentations on slender-body aerodynamics, nonstationary aerodynamics, dynamic stability and control, nonlinear control theory, hydrofoil theory, ground-based and in-flight simulation, rotary-wing aerodynamics, pilot human factors, man-machine interaction, data-base mining, anomaly detection, and aviation safety. In 2020, he published a new book, Human Consciousness: The Evolution of Our Sensor of Society.
Edwin H. Krug died 9 July at age 96.
Taught how to fly by his uncle as a teenager, he became interested in an aeronautical career. Between 1944 and 1946 he served in the U.S. Navy on the USS Chloris, and then in the Washington DC Bureau of Aeronautics.
Krug earned a BSAE degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and an MSAE from MIT before accepting a position with General Dynamics (Convair) as the aerodynamicist in change of automatic flight control systems for airplanes and missiles, specifically the B58 (Hustler) and MX2224, a pilotless plane. Lear, Inc., which later became Lear Siegler, lured Krug to Michigan in 1954, where he continued to work as an aeronautical engineer until he retired.
Krug, a 70+-year member of AIAA, served on the Science Advisory Board for the State of Michigan and also served as the Executive Program Director of Space Shuttle ADI.
Richard “Dick” S. Snedeker died on 16 August. He was 93 years old.
Snedeker served in the U. S. Navy from 1945 to 1946. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Princeton University in 1951 and received a master’s in 1961.
Initially employed by Princeton University Press as a technical illustrator and editor, Snedeker moved on to work at Aeronautical Research Associates of Princeton (ARAP), where he spent his 40-year career working in the field of experimental fluid dynamics. He published nearly 100 papers and received five U.S. patents. He retired from ARAP in 1997. He was a member of AIAA for over 70 years.
Bob Greene, a self-taught computer and aerospace engineer who was a driving force in the AIAA Atlanta Section, died on 8 October. He was 69 years old.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration and management from Mississippi State in 1978, Greene developed a passion for space travel and designing a rocket propulsion system that would help people safely reach Mars. He presented a paper entitled “Getting Around the Solar System Quickly: A Design Study for a High Speed, Highly Reusable Nuclear Fission Rocket Engine for Use on Deep Space Missions” at the 53rd AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference in July 2017. He started the Aeronaut Corporation, an aviation, marine, and aerospace company that specialized in fluid power system designs, out of his house.
Greene was extremely involved with AIAA for more than 20 years at the regional and section levels. He was the program chair for the AIAA Atlanta Section, as well as its Congressional Visits Day state team captain. Greene worked to promote STEM programs through AIAA, and under his leadership, the Atlanta Section earned a third-place finish in the large section category for Public Policy in the annual AIAA Section Awards in 2019.
Greene was recognized with the 2018 AIAA Sustained Service Award for his involvement with AIAA. He was enthusiastic about the possibilities of the space industry and tourism, and recently had been working on a paper about tandem autonomous robots for exploring lava tubes on the moon and Mars.
