Capstone Satellite orbiting the moon

CU Boulder leading $5 million multi-university project to advance the space economy

Oct. 3, 2023

The space economy is booming, and the University of Colorado Boulder is at the forefront of a major federal funding initiative aimed at expanding science and engineering knowledge and workforce development for projects centered on operations Beyond Geostationary Orbit (xGEO) and Space Domain Awareness (SDA). Leading this endeavor is Marcus...

An artist's render shows a soft robot using its flexible flower-shaped limbs to touch down on an asteroid.

Asteroid Landings Call For Robots With a Soft Touch

Sept. 8, 2023

Jay McMahon's work on soft robots for space exploration and mining is being highlighted by IEEE Spectrum. McMahon, an associate professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is developing Area-of-Effect Softbots (AoES) for asteroid proximity operations that can use electro-adhesion, solar radiation, or van der...

Jay McMahon

McMahon interviewed for national story on DART

Sept. 27, 2022

Associate Professor Jay McMahon was featured in an article on NASA's DART mission, which successfully crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos yesterday. The piece, in the Christian Science Monitor, was written ahead of the collision. It outlines goals of the mission as an experiment for future planetary defense from asteroids. McMahon,...

Artist's depiction of the DART spacecraft about to slam into the asteroid Dimorphos.

NASA is about to intentionally crash a spacecraft into an asteroid. This engineer will be watching

Sept. 22, 2022

On Monday just after 5 p.m. Mountain Time, a NASA spacecraft called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is set to crash and burn—on purpose. The spacecraft is aiming for a pair of asteroids orbiting around each other millions of miles from Earth: Didymos, which measures about a half-mile across,...

DART Illustration

McMahon part of NASA's first-ever mission to redirect the path of an asteroid

Nov. 29, 2021

University of Colorado Boulder Associate Professor Jay McMahon is a participating scientist on NASA's DART, or Double Asteroid Redirect Test mission, which launched last week. Denver's 9News spoke with McMahon about the project, which aims to test asteroid deflection technology. DART will travel to and then intentionally crash into the...

Jay McMahonm

McMahon receives Outstanding Faculty Graduate Advisor Award

Aug. 23, 2021

Associate Professor Jay McMahon has been recognized with an Outstanding Faculty Graduate Advisor Award. The honor, bestowed by the College of Engineering and Applied Science, recognizes faculty who demonstrate exceptional advising skills and who serve as role models to other advisors. Honorees are selected based on the scores and comments...

Illustration of NASA’s DART spacecraft and the Italian Space Agency’s (ASI) LICIACube prior to impact at the Didymos binary system.

Building planetary defenses for killer asteroids

April 19, 2021

Jay McMahon is joining a groundbreaking NASA mission to test asteroid deflection technology. McMahon, an assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder has been named a participating scientist in the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). DART is the first...

Artist's depiction of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

Scientists peer inside an asteroid

Oct. 9, 2020

New findings from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission suggest that the interior of the asteroid Bennu could be weaker and less dense than its outer layers—like a crème-filled chocolate egg flying though space. The results appear in a study published today in the journal Science Advances and led by the University of...

Jay McMahon

Seminar: Autonomous Guidance, Navigation and Control for Small Body Exploration (and beyond!) - Sept. 25

Sept. 19, 2020

Jay McMahon Assistant Professor, Smead Aerospace Friday, Sep. 25 | 12:30 P.M. | Zoom Webinar - Registration Required Abstract: Small bodies in the solar system - both asteroids and comets - have complex dynamical environments that create unique challenges to operating spacecraft in close proximity. Future missions will desire to...

OSIRIS-REx observed small bits of material leaping off the surface of the asteroid Bennu on Jan. 19, 2019. (Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin)

How small particles could reshape Bennu and other asteroids

Sept. 9, 2020

In January 2019, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was orbiting the asteroid Bennu when the spacecraft’s cameras caught something unexpected: Thousands of tiny bits of material, some just the size of marbles, began to bounce off the surface of the asteroid—like a game of ping-pong in space. Since then, many more such...

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