By:  Christy Bui, Air Force Institute of Technology

Throughout 2023, the Center for Space Research and Assurance at the Air Force Institute of Technology continued to align with our mission of enhancing graduate education by delivering applied, experimental research through innovative solutions to defense and security challenges in the space domain. We have done some exciting things over the course of a year!

Did you know that AFIT currently has a hosted payload and free-flying satellite? Grissom P, composed of both a free flyer satellite and a payload hosted on another satellite, launched in the fourth quarter, is on-orbit right now, with both components working together to do proximity operations testing for sensor systems on both ends.

We celebrated graduates in Astronautical Engineering and Spaces Systems, awarding 17 Masters of Science and four Doctoral degrees in 2023. Also, Space Systems and Space Vehicle Design graduate certificates were awarded to four students. While the majority of our 2023 graduates were military, six of our masters degree graduates were civilian, and of those, four are current employees at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center/National Space Intelligence Center.

Center students, faculty, and staff attended 31 conferences, published 11 journal articles, were awarded three patents during the calendar year and had 18 active space research projects. Along with the educational value the cost invested in active space research in 2023 was over $1M in support of our mission and dedication to students.

2023 brought many significant interactions with other space organizations as well.

• CSRA and the European Space Agency were tied for the most publications for cislunar/lunar space debris propagation and spacecraft risk, and AFIT is leading the community.
• Lt Col Daniel Moomey, a 2023 USSF Ph.D. graduate, spearheaded research focused on assessing spacecraft collision risk in low Earth orbit. His research garnered $250K from the Air Force Office of Sponsored Research to build a big-data analysis tool to collect millions of conjunction data messages (obtained from civil/military/commercial sources) to assess collision risk.
• 2d Lt David Garcia, a 2023 USSF masters graduate, developed a novel origami-based space mirror for deployment from CubeSats. His research led to the filing of a formal patent for the invention.
• Faculty created and taught a Relative Motion and Proximity Operations short course for members of the Space Systems Center and Air Force Research Laboratory.
• Participated in and helped to execute United States Space Force’s Chief Technology and Innovation Office Hyperspace Challenge Workshop for the USSF Space Strategic Technology Institutes/University Consortium.
• Participated in the USSF Science and Technology Summit held at NASIC in Aug 23.

2023 saw a lot of change for CSRA personnel. First, we welcomed Ms. Christy Bui, our new administrative support, and Maj Rachel Oliver as an Assistant Professor. CSRA extends gratitude and appreciation to Col Nathan Terry for his service as center director. Col Terry has now transitioned to his new role as, Interim Head, for the Department of Engineering Physics. Finally, we send our congratulations to Dr. Bradley Ayres on his retirement.

The commitment of our faculty to excellence has been rewarded: we celebrate the promotion of Dr. Carl Hartsfield who is the new CSRA Director; Lt Col Robert Bettinger on his promotion to Associate Professor and Senior Military Faculty; Lt Col Ryan Kemnitz, who was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel; and Maj Rachel Oliver to the rank of Major.