People

Faculty Advisor

Ryan P. Russell        

R.P.R. began his career as a member of the Guidance, Navigation, and Control Section at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he was involved as mission designer and orbit determination analyst for a variety of space flight projects. He also worked on proposals and advanced concepts for space missions to Earth, the Moon, Mars, comets, asteroids, and the moons around Jupiter and Saturn. He further supported internal research on developing technologies such as low-thrust trajectory optimization and science orbit design at planetary moons. From 2007-2011, R.P.R. was on the faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology, creating a research program focused on a variety of theoretical and applied areas in astrodynamics.  He joined the faculty at UT Austin in 2012. With almost two decades of space related research, R.P.R. has authored or co-authored over 200 conference and other technical publications; and has been a recipient of several NASA, JPL, AIAA, AAS, and other awards.

Brief Personal Bio

Current Graduate Students

Chun-Yi Wu David Cunningham Bryn Fanger Noah Lifset William Brandenburg Brady Harrison Quinn Moon (co-advising) Jad Bourjeili

Alumni

Ph.D.

Shubham Singh, Shift Robotics Sean McArdle, NASA JSC David Ottesen, LeoLabs Patrick Wittick, The Aerospace Corporation Kevin Bokelmann,  Applied Physics Laboratory/Johns Hopkins Ricardo Restrepo,  NASA JPL(post-doc) Etienne Pellegrini, NASA JPL Ashley Biria, The Aerospace Corporation Noble Hatten,  Texas Satellite Lab, The University of Texas at Austin;   now:Applied Physics Laboratory/Johns Hopkins Corwin Olson, Applied Research Labs, The University of Texas at Austin Vivek Vittaldev, Planet Demyan Lantukh, The Aerospace Corporation Nick Bradley, NASA JPL Nitin Arora, (graduated from Georgia Tech) NASA JPL; now: Blue Origin Gregory Lantoine, (graduated from Georgia Tech) NASA JPL Kybeom Kwon, (co-advised, graduated from Georgia Tech) Republic of Korea Air Force Academy

Link to Dissertations 

M.S.

James Leith Carter Franz, The Aerospace Corporation Ed George, The Aerospace Corporation Chase Brown Forrest Ward, Firefly Aerospace Robert See Max Schadegg Hemanshu Patel Danny Browne Josh Ross Danny Browne Adam Brinckerhoff Bala Radharamanan Sean Blackman Jason Yu Cengiz Akinli (co-advised) William J. Gallagher (co-advised)

Visiting Scholars

Jose Jose Angel Gutierrez Ahumada Diogene Alessandro Dei Tos Bruno Sarli Nitin Arora