Aeronautical and astronautical engineering

From left to right, top to bottom: Suzanne Flynn, Wesley L. Harris, Eric Klopfer, Douglas A. Lauffenburger, John J. Leonard, Arthur B. Baggeroer

Six MIT faculty elected 2019 AAAS Fellows

Baggeroer, Flynn, Harris, Klopfer, Lauffenburger, and Leonard are recognized for their efforts to advance science.

November 26, 2019

Star City, a concept for a human city on Mars, won first place at the Mars Colony Prize Design contest. The design, led by MIT PhD student George Lordos and his brother Alexandros, features five villages constructed around a crater rim.

Interdisciplinary team takes top prize in Mars colony design competition

MIT PhD student George Lordos and his brother Alexandros led the project; goal of the Mars Society competition was to establish a colony on Mars for 1,000 residents.

November 25, 2019

3 Questions: When the student becomes the teacher

Grad student Brandon Leshchinskiy created EarthDNA Ambassadors, an outreach program “for the Earth, for future generations.”

November 5, 2019

Even in unexplored waters, an MIT-developed robotic system can efficiently sniff out valuable, hard-to-find spots to collect samples from. When implemented in autonomous boats deployed off the coast of Barbados (pictured), the system quickly found the most exposed coral head —meaning it was located in the shallowest spot — which is useful for studying how sun exposure impacts coral organisms.

Autonomous system improves environmental sampling at sea

Robotic boats could more rapidly locate the most valuable sampling spots in uncharted waters.

November 4, 2019

For last-mile delivery, robots of the future may use a new MIT algorithm to find the front door, using clues in their environment.

Technique helps robots find the front door

Navigation method may speed up autonomous last-mile delivery.

November 4, 2019

The crew of HERA Campaign 5, Mission 2: (l-r) Barret Schlegelmilch SM ’18, MBA ’18, Christian Clark, Julie Mason, and Ana Mosquera.

Practicing for a voyage to Mars

Barret Schlegelmilch ’18 takes part in simulated NASA mission to the Martian moon Phobos.

October 29, 2019

MIT engineers have developed a system for autonomous vehicles that senses tiny changes in shadows on the ground to determine if there’s a moving object coming around the corner, such as when another car is approaching from behind a pillar in a parking garage.

Helping autonomous vehicles see around corners

By sensing tiny changes in shadows, a new system identifies approaching objects that may cause a collision.

October 27, 2019

MIT researchers have developed a trajectory-planning model that helps drones fly more safely at high speeds through previously unexplored areas, which could aid search-and-rescue missions through dense forests.

System prevents speedy drones from crashing in unfamiliar areas

Drones can fly at high speeds to a destination while keeping safe “backup” plans if things go awry.

October 25, 2019

A system designed by researchers at MIT and elsewhere enables interconnected smart devices to cooperatively pinpoint their positions in noisy environments where GPS usually fails, which is useful for emerging “localization-of-things” applications.

System helps smart devices find their position

Connected devices can now share position information, even in noisy, GPS-denied areas.

October 2, 2019

Humatics co-founder and CEO David Mindell at Humatics headquarters in Waltham, MA.

An interdisciplinary approach to accelerating human-machine collaboration

Professor’s startup brings millimeter-scale location tracking to factories, ports, and other industrial environments.

October 2, 2019

Worlds orbiting stars other than our sun are “exoplanets,” and they come in many sizes, from gas giants larger than Jupiter to small, rocky planets. This illustration of a "super-Earth" represents the type of planet that the TESS mission aims to find outside our solar system.

Computing and the search for new planets

MIT planetary scientists partner with computer scientists to find exoplanets.

September 23, 2019

MIT PhD candidates Katie Hahm (left) and Nithin Reddy (right) hiked Skyline Trail in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, this summer with a friend, Steven Viola. They both spent the summer interning at Amazon Robotics through the MechE Alliance's I2P Program and traveled to Amazon headquarters in Seattle.

An immersive experience in industry

Through the MechE Alliance’s Industry Immersion Program, graduate students get hands-on experience working on projects across a range of industries.

September 19, 2019

MIT researchers are training a pair of generative adversarial networks, or GANs, to mimic the land, sea, and cloud textures seen in satellite images with the goal of eventually visualizing real-world sea-level rise. It’s one of many artificial intelligence research projects made possible by IBM and Google-donated cloud credits.

What a little more computing power can do

Commercial cloud service providers give artificial intelligence computing at MIT a boost.

September 16, 2019

The Redemption of Vanity, is a work of art by MIT artist in residence Diemut Strebe that has been realized together with Brian L. Wardle, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Director of necstlab and Nano- Engineered Composite aerospace STructures (NECST) Consortium and his team Drs. Luiz Acauan and Estelle Cohen. Strebe’s residency at MIT is supported by the Center for Art, Science & ...

MIT engineers develop “blackest black” material to date

Made from carbon nanotubes, the new coating is 10 times darker than other very black materials.

September 12, 2019

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is inspected before its launch in April 2018. Approximately 250 MIT scientists and engineers are included as recipients of the NASA Silver Achievement Medal for their role in the TESS mission.

TESS team is awarded NASA's Silver Achievement Medal

The honor recognizes the "stellar achievement" of the people behind the exoplanet-seeking satellite.