Aeronautical and astronautical engineering

Space Systems Engineering students (left to right) Jeremy Stroming, Tori Wuthrich, and Nicholas James compare the properties of stony and iron meteorites.

Project Apophis

Space Systems Engineering students design a close-range mission to a giant asteroid that will fly by Earth in 2029.

May 31, 2017

Engineers at MIT have come up with an algorithm to tune a Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS) camera, simplifying a scene to its most essential visual elements and potentially enabling the development of faster drones.

Faster, more nimble drones on the horizon

New algorithm quickly makes sense of incoming visual data.

May 25, 2017

Dean Ian Waitz stands with the School of Engineering's 2017 Infinite Mile Award Winners. Standing, left to right: Waitz, Rachel Batista, Lisa Bella, Michelle Morrison, Beth Milnes, and Bill Litant. Seated, left to right: Stacy Springs, Melinda Lyman-Wright, and Ludmila Leoparde.

Spotlight on engineering staff

The School of Engineering gives its 2017 Infinite Mile Awards for exceptional service and support.

May 22, 2017

"The new frontier is learning how to design the relationships between people, robots, and infrastructure," says David Mindell, the Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, and a professor of aeronautics and astronautics. "We need new sensors, new software, new ways of architecting systems."

Q&A: On the future of human-centered robotics

Professor David Mindell, who researches the interaction between automation and human behavior, discusses the interdependence of people, robots, and infrastructure.

May 15, 2017

“I’m driven by developing methodology that will be broadly useful,” says Youssef Marzouk, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.

Illuminating uncertainty

Youssef Marzouk aims to improve predictions of everything from underground pollution to daily weather.

May 11, 2017

MIT doctoral candidate Claudia Pérez-D'Arpino discusses her work teaching the Optimus robot to perform various tasks, including picking up a bottle.

Teaching robots to teach other robots

CSAIL approach allows robots to learn a wider range of tasks using some basic knowledge and a single demo.

May 10, 2017

Katy Olesnavage of MIT is a $15,000 Lemelson-MIT “Cure it!” Graduate Winner for her method to design a better prosthetic foot.

Collegiate inventors awarded 2017 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize

Students recognized for inventive solutions to challenges in health care, transportation, food and agriculture, and consumer devices.

April 19, 2017

Mexico City “Better World” event showcases the MIT community in Latin America

Guest speakers offer stories of MIT’s connectivity and innovation.

April 12, 2017

MIT alumni and faculty have a long history of public policy service. Kathleen Hicks PhD ’10 (left) is director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Samuel Rodarte Jr. ’13 is a legislative aide for U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano.

Shaping public policy in the nation's capital

Alumni continue an enduring tradition of MIT service.

April 12, 2017

Panelists at MacVicar Day 2017: (l-r) Anantha Chandrakasan, Peter Schmidt-Nielsen, Ava Soleimany, Shirin Shivaei, Neil Gershenfeld, Kevin Castro, Ian Waitz, Anne McCants, and Dennis Freeman.

Exploring the impact of Margaret MacVicar’s legacy on education at MIT

Faculty and students share their perspectives on the value of undergraduate research at “Pushing Boundaries” event.

April 6, 2017

Making better decisions when outcomes are uncertain

A simple statistical trick could help make a ubiquitous model of decision processes more accurate.

March 21, 2017

MIT aerospace researchers have demonstrated that some randomness in the arrangement of carbon atoms makes materials that are lighter and stronger, shown at lower right in illustration, compared to a more densely packed and tightly ordered structure, shown lower left. They formed a type of disordered graphite-like carbon material that is often called glassy carbon by “baking” a phenol-formadehy...

Disorder can be good

Researchers discover that chaos makes carbon materials lighter and stronger.

March 17, 2017

The Aviation Week Network’s 2017 “20 Twenties” winners were honored during an awards ceremony in March. MIT graduate students Kristen Railey (front row, fourth from left) and Alexander Feldstein (second row from bottom, first from left) were among the honorees.

Two from MIT recognized as outstanding engineering leaders

Grad students Kristen Railey and Alexander Feldstein were named to the Aviation Week Network’s “20 Twenties” for 2017.

March 15, 2017

Astronauts and organizers of Beyond the Cradle gathered at the Media Lab on March 12. Back row, left to right: HI-SEAS IV Mars simulation participant Sheyna Gifford, NASA astronauts Jeff Hoffman and Leland Melvin, and PhD student Dan “Novysan” Novy. Front row, left to right: NASA astronaut Cady Coleman '83, PhD student Ariel Ekblaw, Media Lab Director Joi Ito.

Media Lab sets sights on space

MIT Media Lab event, Beyond the Cradle, launches a new initiative to explore the final frontier.

March 14, 2017

At this weekend’s New Space Age Conference, private space industry entrepreneurs and innovators descended on MIT’s campus to showcase their novel commercial ideas and innovations that could help humanity explore space and benefit people here on Earth.

Commercial space: Can we privatize our way to the stars?

Annual conference explores the rise and distant future of the private space industry.