The SPIE Optics + Photonics conference took place August 11 – 16 in San Diego. The SIOSLab attended, and presented two talks: Optical design of a modular segmented space telescope and Exploration of the dynamical phase space of stars with known planets.
Congratulations to Dean Keithly on Passing his A Exam
Dean Keithly successfully passed his A exam on 9/9/2019, marking his entrance into the dissertation phase of his degree program. His presentation can be viewed here.
2019 AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference
The 2019 AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference took place between August 11th-16th in Portland, Maine this year. I presented my talk titled “Solar Sail Trajectories and Orbit Phasing of Modular Spacecraft for Segmented Telescope Assembly about Sun-Earth L2.”
New Paper in The Astronomical Journal

Our new paper entitled “Detecting Planets from Direct-imaging Observations Using Common Spatial Pattern Filtering” has been published in The Astronomical Journal. It can be found here.
JGCD Paper Published
Our new paper, titled
“Parameterizing the Search Space of Starshade Fuel Costs for Optimal Observation Scheduling” has been published in the Journal of Guidance, Control & Dynamics. The paper can be accessed here.
AAS 233rd Meeting
Our lab attended the 233rd AAS Meeting in drizzly Seattle, Washington in early January. Dean Keithly presented his poster titled “Blind Search Single-Visit Exoplanet Direct Imaging Yield for Space Based Telescopes.” Jacob Shapiro presented his poster “Optical Design of a Large Segmented Space Telescope.” Dmitry Savransky presented a talk titled “Simulating Known Exoplanet Orbits for WFIRST CGI Imaging.” Gabriel Soto presented a poster titled “Navigation and Orbit Phasing of Modular Spacecraft for Segmented Telescope Assembly about Sun-Earth L2.”
Congratulations to Jacob Shapiro on Passing his A Exam
Jacob Shapiro successfully passed his A exam, marking his entrance into the dissertation phase of his degree program. His presentation can be viewed here.
Congratulations Dr. Garrett
Daniel Garrett successfully defended his thesis, titled “Exoplanet Direct Imaging Detection Metrics and Exoplanet Populations” on November 20th, 2018. A copy of his presentation can be seen here. Congratulations to Dr. Garrett and the very best of luck in all of his future endeavors.
Prototype Module of Self-Assembling Space Telescope

Progress is being made on our 2018 NIAC Modular Active Self-Assembling Space Telescope Swarms! We have managed to draft a potential model of our proposed segment design. This model (while incomplete) demonstrates we can package the key subsystems of a spacecraft into the dimensional constraints of a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) size mirror. Details are in progress!
PASP Paper Published
Our new paper titled “Planet occurrence rate density models including stellar effective temperature” has been published in PASP. The paper can be accessed through DOI.





