January 15, 2016
Aerospace engineering Ph.D. candidate Noble Hatten and Ph.D. alumnus Vivek Vittaldev were both selected to receive the American Astronautical Society’s (AAS) nationally competitive John V. Breakwell Student Travel award.
According to the AAS, the purpose of the award is to encourage and promote research activity in space flight mechanics and astrodynamics by providing financial support to one or more students presenting papers at AAS and/or AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meetings and Astrodynamics Conferences. The award includes travel expenses up to $1,000 and a certificate.
Hatten was selected for his paper titled, “A Smooth And Robust Harris-Priester Atmospheric Density Model” and Vittaldev was selected for his paper titled, “Space Object Collision Probability Via Monte Carlo On The Graphics Processing Unit.” Professor Ryan Russell has served as faculty advisor to both Hatten and Vittaldev.
Vittaldev’s paper presents the implementation of the Monte Carlo method on a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). The Monte Carlo method is currently the most accurate method of computing the probability of collision between to objects in space. Running this tool on a GPU is a hundred times faster than computing the collision probability on a single computer processor.
Both Hatten and Vittaldev will present their papers at the 2016 AAS Space Flight Mechanics Meeting in Napa Valley, California.
