{"427441":{"#nid":"427441","#data":{"type":"news","title":"GT-AE welcomes Dr. E. Glenn Lightsey","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ctable width=\u0022200\u0022 border=\u00220\u0022 cellspacing=\u00221\u0022 cellpadding=\u00225\u0022 align=\u0022right\u0022\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\u0022rtecenter\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EDr. E. Glenn Lightsey joined the GT\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELast fall, when Dr. E. Glenn Lightsey\u0027s Texas research team gathered to watch the launch of its fourth satellite since 2009, they witnessed a stunning first: the Antares rocket exploded, destroying the valuable cargo they\u2019d spent 18 months building.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor Lightsey, as an aerospace engineer, it was something of an outlier. He has contributed to many space missions during his career at NASA and as the founder of UT-Austin\u2019s Texas Spacecraft Lab. Three previous satellites from the lab had executed successfully.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut for Lightsey, as a teacher, it was a valuable opportunity to drive home some hard lessons about aerospace engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnyone who knows Lightsey knows how he took it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe students and I were back in the lab the next day, reviewing data and planning the next mission. I\u2019m very proud of them.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ctable width=\u0022200\u0022 border=\u00220\u0022 cellspacing=\u00221\u0022 cellpadding=\u00221\u0022 align=\u0022right\u0022\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003Cem\u003EProf. E. Glenn Lightsey with one of the students from UT-Austin\u0027s Texas Space Lab, where he has already launched several satellites.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/em\u003EPhoto courtesy of UT Aerospace\u0026nbsp;Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Department\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOn January 2, 2015, Lightsey joined the faculty of the Georgia Tech School of Aerospace Engineering. Along with an unparalleled resume for satellite launch and technology development, he brought a teaching philosophy that will feel right at home at GT-AE:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cStudents in aerospace engineering want to solve real problems and participate in flight projects. They accept that there\u2019s a risk of catastrophic failure, like this one, and they work all the harder to avoid it.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor the most part, his students do. In addition to its previous launches, Lightsey\u0027s research group will be launching two more satellites in the next 18 months. A third collaboration with JPL will see a propulsion system designed by Lightsey\u2019s team get launched into interplanetary space sometime next year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat could be the first cubesat to go beyond Earth\u2019s orbit,\u201d said Lightsey from his newly established office in Georgia Tech\u2019s Montgomery Knight Building. \u201cIn the future, we should be seeing cubesats landing on other planets. Maybe sooner than you\u0027d expect.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ctable width=\u0022200\u0022 border=\u00220\u0022 cellspacing=\u00221\u0022 cellpadding=\u00221\u0022 align=\u0022right\u0022\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\u0022rtecenter\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EDr. E. Glenn Lightsey with one of his new GT-AE\u0026nbsp;colleagues, Dr. Mitchell Walker.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt Georgia Tech, Lightsey, an expert in space technology, will continue the work he began at UT Austin: research on small satellite design, space flight hardware, suborbital rockets, and balloon payloads. Collaborating with colleagues from the Space System Design Lab, he looks forward to charting new territory. And, yes, launching more satellites.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe fly missions and they are exciting, but that\u2019s not the endpoint. It\u2019s the motivation for what we do,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cEach mission drives technology \u2013 things you need to make it happen. And that leads to more research because you are always looking for better ways to employ technology - new technologies - on the next mission.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELightsey\u2019s perspective on the matter was shaped, to some degree, by his 13-year stint at NASA\u0027s Goddard Space Flight Center.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe had two or three space missions happening each year, so every engineer was involved in some phase of the mission life cycle,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI wasn\u2019t directly involved in each of them, but I was able to see first-hand how engineers solved the unique problems that each mission had.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe solutions to those problems have inevitably spawned new capabilities, many of which Lightsey has capitalized on. For instance, the downsizing of satellites \u2013 the rise of nano-satellites \u2013 has not only made it cheaper to launch; it has also greatly expanded data collection capabilities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe cost to send something into space is similar to the cost of gold: more than $10,000 per kilogram,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat\u2019s the economic proposition we\u2019re dealing with, so when you reduce the size of your satellites by an order of magnitude, you are going to find it\u2019s a lot cheaper to get to space. And then you find that you can afford to build a formation of satellites \u2013 something that can perform tasks from multiple locations at the same time. That\u2019s enormously helpful for things like predicting the weather, where a denser collection of instruments can take massive amounts of measurements and create far more realistic models.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs enthused as he is about the myriad research possibilities, Lightsey never forgets the economic limitations. Funding for space research is always vulnerable to budget retractions. He remains not only optimistic, but a little bullish about the future of aerospace research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt used to be that you had to be a government or one of a small number of companies to even think about building a satellite, but now you don\u2019t have to be part of that club. As soon as there\u2019s an economic engine behind space development, new innovations can happen. And they are happening now.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe economic boon is not restricted to headline-grabbing companies, he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt took us decades and billions of dollars to bring GPS technology into everyday use, but the pace is changing. With small sats, even if the sensors are individually simple devices, they can provide services that, at a certain price point, could find a market that will make them economically feasible \u2013 like shipping companies that want to get real-time video from space to monitor their cargoes, and businesses that want to get real-time usage information on their parking lots. Individuals might not be using this today, but the market is developing.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELightsey knows a thing or two about developing markets. While in Texas he started and sold a satellite instrumentation company. That experience has given him a new perspective on the discipline \u2013 one that he thinks the next generation of aerospace students will readily adopt.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe way I look at aerospace engineering is that it\u2019s a pie with three slices,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s government, academia, and commercial space. To really understand the discipline you need to appreciate all three sectors. They each play a part in how aerospace engineering works as an industry.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith a background that spans all three areas, Glenn Lightsey will be bringing GT-AE the full package.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EFind out more about Dr.\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ae.gatech.edu\/community\/staff\/bio\/lightsey-e\u0022\u003EE. Glenn Lightsey\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"On January 2, 2015, Lightsey joined the faculty of the Georgia Tech School of Aerospace Engineering."}],"uid":"27456","created_gmt":"2015-07-22 10:26:52","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:18:52","author":"Britanny Grace","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-01-26T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2015-01-26T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1239","name":"School of Aerospace Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2082","name":"aerospace engineering"},{"id":"136281","name":"Glenn Lightsey"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["communications@ae.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}