FROM THE INSTITUTE
Mostafa Hassanalian was one of six faculty advisors selected to receive the 2025 AIAA Faculty Advisor Award, highlighting his dedication to education, student mentorship, and his impact on the broader community at the local, state, and national levels. Hassanalian continues to create opportunities that support student success both inside and outside the classroom.
Tag: aerospace engineering
RTX’s Pratt & Whitney Lands $3.8B F135 Production Contract
Airforce Technology reports, “Pratt & Whitney, part of RTX, has received a contract modification worth $3.8bn for the production of lots 18 and 19 of the F135 engine. The engine powers all three models of the F-35 Lightning II, which recently exceeded one million engine flight hours.”
Full Story (Airforce Technology)
NASA Prepares 322-Foot SLS Rocket for Artemis II Moon Flyby
The Wall Street Journal reports, “NASA’s Artemis II mission is designed to power a crew of four astronauts out to the moon, zip them around it and safely bring them back to Earth. It is a big test for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and a swarm of contractors, including Boeing, which developed the core stage of Artemis’s towering Space Launch System rocket, and Lockheed Martin, the company behind the Orion crew capsule.”
Full Story (Wall Street Journal – Subscription Publication)
Navy Issues Final RFP for T-45 Goshawk Trainer Replacement
Defense Daily reports, “The Navy issued its final Request for Proposals (RFP) on March 26 for its Undergraduate Jet Training System (UJTS) that aims to succeed the current T-45 Goshawk trainer aircraft. The requirement for UJTS is to provide intermediate and advanced training for undergraduate U.S. Navy and Marine Corps jet aviators and flight officers.”
Full Story (Defense Daily)
AIAA Anticipates Artemis II Launch with Collection of Technical Papers
As NASA counts down to the Artemis II launch, AIAA is pleased to release the most recent technical content published on the Artemis program from the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets and meeting papers at AIAA SciTech Forum (2024–2026). These original research results and technological progress on Artemis have been published in AIAA’s Aerospace Research Central (ARC). The Artemis II collection is complimentary this year as we celebrate the Artemis II mission.
Falcon 9 Launches 119 Payloads into Orbit on Transporter-16 Mission
Via Satellite reports, “SpaceX launched 119 payloads into Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) at 4:02 a.m. PT on Transporter-16, a dedicated smallsat rideshare mission, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Monday morning. The mission was the first stage booster’s 12thflight. It landed vertically on a droneship in the Pacific Ocean after releasing its payloads.”
Full Story (Via Satellite)
Video
SpaceX launches 119 payloads on Transporter-16 mission. (Launch occurs at the 0:10 mark)
VideoFromSpace; YouTube
NASA Advances X-59 Testing After Resolving Cockpit Alert Issue
Aviation Week reports, “The cockpit warning light that cut short the second flight of NASA’s X-59 low-boom supersonic flight demonstrator on March 20 proved to be a false positive and the aircraft resumed envelope expansion testing with back-to-back flights on March 26 and 27. The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works-built X-59 was forced to return to base at Edwards AFB, California, after only 9 min. of a planned hour-long flight on March 20 when NASA Test Pilot Jim Less saw a vehicle system warning in the cockpit.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Call for Content Now Open for AIAA SciTech Forum
FROM THE INSTITUTE
The Institute is requesting technical paper abstracts and session proposals for AIAA SciTech Forum 2027. Share your ideas and contribute to shaping the 2027 forum program. Deadline: 21 May 2026.
ASCEND 2026 Will Showcase the Space Industry’s Most Influential Voices
FROM THE INSTITUTE
More than 200 luminaries from across the civil, commercial, and national security space sectors, adjacent industries, and the next-generation workforce will take the ASCEND stage, 19–21 May, in Washington, D.C. They will address the most important opportunities and mission-critical challenges at this pivotal time for the space community. Registration for ASCEND 2026 is open now, with early-bird rates available until 20 April.
Full Story
2026 AIAA von Kármán Lecture in Astronautics on Learning and Controlling Autonomous Space Systems to be Presented by Maruthi Akella from University of Texas at Austin
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 31, 2026 – Reston, Va. – AIAA is pleased to announce the 2026 AIAA von Kármán Lecture in Astronautics is awarded to Maruthi Akella, Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas (UT) Austin, where he holds the Cockrell Family Endowed Chair in Engineering.
The lecture, “Opinion Dynamics, Learning, Trust, and Control of Autonomous Space Systems,” will be presented Wednesday, 20 May, at 12:15 p.m. ET, during ASCEND 2026, 19–21 May, Washington, D.C. The lecture will be delivered in person, as well as recorded. Registration for 2026 ASCEND is open now. Journalists can request a Press Pass online.
Autonomous space systems face significant challenges when operating under uncertainty, especially near other vehicles that may not cooperate. In applications like In-Space Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM), these systems must quickly learn, adapt, and make smart decisions in complex, unpredictable environments.
This lecture will showcase a framework for multithread learning designed to maintain spacecraft performance despite high uncertainty and fast variations. The approach builds on recently developed learning structures and trust metrics. During his lecture, Akella will illustrate the framework through ISAM examples in spacecraft guidance and proximity operations.
Akella’s research contributions have found several highly successful applications in astrodynamics and in the control of space systems and vision-guided robotics. His research group contributed to the onboard guidance algorithm for the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission – the first U.S. moon landing in more than 50 years since the Apollo era.
Akella has published more than 260 research papers in peer-reviewed archival journals and conference proceedings. The major impacts of his work have been recognized through the AIAA Mechanics and Control of Flight Award, the AAS Dirk Brouwer Award, the IEEE-CSS Award for Excellence in Aerospace Control, and the Judith Resnik Space Award from the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society.
In October 2024, the International Astronomical Union designated asteroid number 5376 – a nearly five-mile diameter-sized minor planet from the main asteroid belt as “Maruthiakella,” honoring Akella’s contributions to “many successful applications in astrodynamics.”
Akella is a Fellow of AIAA, IEEE, and AAS and holds the Academician rank with the International Academy of Astronautics. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences.
Named in honor of Theodore von Kármán, a world-famous authority on aerospace sciences, this lectureship honors an individual who has performed notably and distinguished themselves technically in the field of astronautics.
Media Contact: Rebecca Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270 cell
About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit www.aiaa.org, and follow AIAA on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X/Twitter.