News & Events

04-28-15

Caltech and Northrop Grumman Corporation have signed a $17.5 million sponsored research agreement for the development of the Space Solar Power Initiative (SSPI). The initiative will develop technologies in three areas: high-efficiency ultralight photovoltaics; ultralight deployable space structures; and phased array and power transmission. "The Space Solar Power Initiative brings together electrical engineers, applied physicists, and aerospace engineers in the type of profound interdisciplinary collaboration that is seamlessly enhanced at a small place like Caltech... We are working on extremely difficult problems that could eventually provide the world with new, and very cost-competitive technology for sustainable energy,” said EAS Chair Ares Rosakis. [Caltech story] [Northrop Grumman Release]

Tags: APhMS EE energy research highlights GALCIT Harry Atwater Ares Rosakis Ali Hajimiri Sergio Pellegrino

01-09-14

The Winter 2013 issue of Engineering & Science features Professor Sergio Pellegrino's Space Structures Laboratory in the Guggenheim building. “The goal for much of my work,” says Pellegrino, “is to make simpler and cheaper spacecraft. I want to use clever structural engineering to make access to space more affordable.” The article also describes him and his team's work on the AAReST project (Autonomous Assembly of a Reconfigurable Space Telescope) as well as applications of his work to solar concentrators. [E&S Article]

Tags: energy research highlights GALCIT Sergio Pellegrino

11-21-13

Professor Sergio Pellegrino and colleagues, including GALCIT graduate student Gina Olson, have received the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 14th Gossamer Systems Forum Best Paper Award for their paper entitled "Deployable Helical Antennas for CubeSats". The Gossamer Systems Forum addresses recent research findings and newly proposed concepts concerning the emerging class of large-scale, lightweight structures that is enabling a paradigm shift in design, launch, and operation of spaceflight systems. [Read the paper]

Tags: honors GALCIT Sergio Pellegrino Gina Olson

09-19-13

The paper entitled "Manufacture of Arbitrary Cross-Section Composite Honeycomb Cores Based on Origami Techniques" by Sergio Pellegrino, Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Civil Engineering as well as Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist, and co-authors Taketoshi Nojima and Kazuya Saito has been selected as the winner of the ASME Design Engineering Division Mechanisms and Robotics Committee Best Paper Award. Professor Pellegrino and colleagues were presented the award at the 37th Mechanisms and Robotics Conference. [Learn more about Prof. Pellegrino's research]

Tags: GALCIT Sergio Pellegrino

07-23-12

Graduate student Francisco Lopez Jimenez, working with Professor Sergio Pellegrino, has been awarded a Young Investigator Award at the 8th European Solid Mechanics Conference. He received the award in recognition of his presentation, “Folding and Strain Softening of Carbon Fiber Composites with an Elastomeric Matrix.”

Tags: honors GALCIT Sergio Pellegrino Francisco Lopez Jimenez

07-18-12

For the past few years, students in Professor Sergio Pellegrino's Aerospace Engineering course (Ae105), have helped design, prototype, and test various pieces of AAReST, a space-telescope demonstration mission currently under development. "It's really different from all of our other classes," says Aerospace graduate student Manan Arya. "You're actually doing work that's going to go into space. It's really exciting." [Caltech Feature]

Tags: GALCIT alumni Sergio Pellegrino Manan Arya AAReST

07-24-11

Marin Kobilarov, a W. M. Keck Institute for Space Studies Postdoctoral Fellow, was a finalist for the best paper award in the 2011 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference - his paper is entitled Cross-Entropy Randomized Motion Planning .  The conference committee solicited original papers in all areas of robotics and followed a highly selective review process designed to select the best work of its kind in every category. Dr. Kobilarov is working on discrete geometric motion control of autonomous vehicles with Professors Mathieu Desbrun and Sergio Pellegrino.  [Read the paper]

Tags: honors GALCIT CMS Mathieu Desbrun Sergio Pellegrino Marin Kobilarov KISS postdocs

02-23-11

Graduate student Xiaowei Deng and Sergio Pellegrino, Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Civil Engineering, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist, have received the Best Paper award from the 11th AIAA Gossamer Systems Forum for their technical paper "Wrinkling of Orthotropic Viscoelastic Membranes." [Read the Paper]

Tags: honors GALCIT MCE Sergio Pellegrino

11-04-09

Sergio Pellegrino, Professor of Aeronautics and Civil Engineering and Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist, has received the NASA Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement Award as a member of the superpressure balloon team. The award is for sound engineering and operational development, outstanding teamwork, and perseverance in building a new scientific balloon capability for NASA.

Tags: honors research highlights GALCIT MCE Sergio Pellegrino