April 28, 2005
E. Glenn Lightsey, Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, has been selected to receive the Institute of Navigation's Tycho Brahe Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the science of space navigation, guidance and control. The award is to be presented in conjunction with the ION's 61st Annual Meeting in Cambridge Massachusetts on June 28, 2005.
Dr. Lightsey specializes in the dynamics and control of spacecraft using avionics sensors such as GPS navigation and attitude determination. His contributions to the field of space navigation include: the first GPS carrier phase attitude determination on a spacecraft (RADCAL); the first attitude control of a spacecraft using on-board GPS attitude sensing (REX-II); the design of a GPS attitude sensor for the International Space Station; a patent for GPS attitude determination which is currently being commercialized by NASA; the first closed loop demonstration of spacecraft formation flying using GPS sensors; and more than 40 technical publications on the dynamics and control of spacecraft.
In the six years that he has been at the University of Texas, Dr. Lightsey has been awarded 18 externally funded research grants. Dr. Lightsey is the Principal Investigator of a University Nanosatellite project known as FASTRAC ("Formation Autonomy Spacecraft with Thrust, Relnav, Attitude, and Crosslink"), to build and fly two satellites to demonstrate these technologies. He was recently awarded two grants to design algorithms for precision navigation at Mars.
Dr. Lightsey received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1997. He has served as Space Representative on the Institute of Navigation’s Council and is a member of the AIAA’s Technical Committee on Guidance, Navigation, and Control. He also performs editorial services for several professional journals and trade periodicals.
