Charles Swanson of PPPL and Mike Paluszek of Princeton Satellite Systems attended the MIT New Space Age Conference at MIT on March 11. It was held on the 7th floor of building E52 at MIT.
Princeton Satellite Systems was a sponsor of the event. It was a great event! There were a number of interesting presentations including one on the history of the Iridium Program. Iridium was almost ready to deorbit the constellation when an investor cobbled together enough money to keep it flying and then found a new market in places without any cell phone service. They are now launching Iridium-Next. After the disappearance of the Malaysian Flight 370, the airlines realized that they need to know the position of all planes in real-time. Iridium offered a hosted payload to do that and that payload is effectively funding the new satellites. The speaker showed us a image from their satellite showing the tracks of aircraft.
Professor Loeb gave an overview of the Starshot project to accelerate small sails to 20% of the speed of light. He discussed some of the challenges of the program. The speed was selected specifically so that the probes would reach Alpha-Centauri during the lifespan of the investigators.
Boeing gave a talk on composite structures. The speaker, Dr. Naveed Hussain, VP of Aeromechanics Technology, The Boeing Company, showed how established companies are innovating.
Spaceflight gave a talk on their launch services. We plan to work with them to launch our test satellites.
At lunch Charles and I sat with a group of students from Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at Princeton University. We were joined by Mark Jernigan, Associate Director, NASA/JSC Human Health and Performance Directorate. We talked with him about the challenges of human spaceflight to Mars.
Charles and I were on the propulsion panel. Charles gave a spectacular overview of the plasma physics of our nuclear fusion engine. I filled in the DFD system details. We had a few questions from the audience.
Our 2017 extern, Eric Hinterman, gave a great talk on the oxygen from carbon dioxide project that will be tested on Mars. It would produce the oxidizer for return missions thus saving money. My wife, Marilyn, took pictures of the panel.
At the reception we were the only sponsor with a table display.
It was a great event! We look forward to attending next year!
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