University of Michigan

Michigan design selected for NASA's NextSTEP toward a crewed Mars mission

By: Kate McAlpin

The spacecraft engine that will help take humans to Mars may be based on a University of Michigan prototype.

NASA gave this dream new credibility by funding a spaceflight propulsion system to be built around a tabletop-sized thruster developed by Prof. Alec Gallimore, the Richard F. and Eleanor A. Towner Professor of Engineering and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the U-M Department of Aerospace Engineering.

The agency selected the thruster as part of its Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships, or NextSTEP program. NextSTEP encompasses a set of projects aimed at improving small satellites, propulsion and human living quarters in space. These are milestones toward sending humans into orbit between the Earth and the moon in the 2020s and to Mars the following decade. Read More

Last July, a team of students from the University of Michigan chapter of SEDS (Students for Exploration and Development of Space) took third place in an international satellite design competition. The Satellites Around Mars competition was held jointly between SEDS-USA and the Society of Satellite Professionals International. As the name suggests, each student team designed a global satellite communications network around Mars, and designs were presented in Boston, Massachusetts at SpaceVision 2015.

Representing the University were Robert Gitten (BSAE ’17), John Behrendt (BSAE ’16), Joshua Aviles (BSAE ’17), and Jason Wallace (MBA ’16). Beginning in February, the team worked through the summer until the September deadline, juggling internships and other plans to complete this undertaking. Read More

By: Kate McAlpine

A camera that can record 3D images and video is under development at the University of Michigan, with $1.2 million in funding from the W.M. Keck Foundation. While other 3D cameras are currently on the market, the new design should be smaller and able to achieve higher resolutions.

3D cameras are useful for a variety of applications including 3D movie filming and, eventually, virtual reality. While 3D films are currently made using multiple cameras to reconstruct each frame, this new type of camera could record in 3D on its own. Images and video recorded by 3D cameras might one day be projected as holograms - although projection is a different challenge entirely. Read More

When SpaceX founder Elon Musk launched a competition to revolutionize the future of transportation, U-M students jumped in. Aerospace Engineering students Nic Roberts, Shivam Sharma, Derek Lukacs, and Hossein Zabihian are members of an intercollegiate team called Openloop. Started this year, Openloop has designed a prototype Hyperloop pod that tests the beginnings of a revolutionary transportation system – one that could turn a four-hour car ride into a 30-minute trip. This summer, they will compete against 30 other teams and will test their 4’ tall prototype in Hawthorne, California. Read More

By: Gabe Cherry

With a new $1.4 million grant, University of Michigan researchers will lead an effort to model a year in the life of a power grid, creating the most detailed, adaptable power grid simulation ever made.

Their model will inform the software at the heart of tomorrow’s smart electrical grid, which will need to shuffle electricity on the fly to constantly optimize the balance between supply and demand. That’s a radical departure from current practice, but experts say it will be essential to build a system that can handle the uncertainty that the future will bring. Next-generation energy systems will rely more on renewable — but intermittent — sources like solar and wind. Read More

Ranked Among the Best

The University of Michigan College of Engineering is one of the top engineering schools in the country. Eight academic departments are ranked in the nation's top 10 -- some twice for different programs. Its research budget is one of the largest of any public university. Its faculty and students are making a difference at the frontiers of fields as diverse as nanotechnology, sustainability, healthcare, national security and robotics. They are involved in spacecraft missions across the solar system, and have developed partnerships with automotive industry leaders to transform transportation. Its entrepreneurial culture encourages faculty and students alike to move their innovations beyond the laboratory and into the real world to benefit society. Its alumni base of nearly 70,000 spans the globe.