• Distinguished Speakers Visit Michigan Engineering
• NASA BioScience and Engineering Institute Awarded to University of Michigan
• ARC Phase III Secures $40 Million Government Research Contract
• AOSS Scientists Integral to New Fusion Science Center
• CASE Honors Michigan Engineering’s 150th Anniversary Web Site
• College Researchers Play Roles in Space Explorations
• AOSS is also deeply involved with the exploration of Mars

Distinguished Speakers Visit Michigan Engineering

Barrett	Joy

Craig Barrett, chief executive officer of Intel Corporation, and Bill Joy (BSE CompE ‘75, DEng hon. ‘04), co-founder of Sun Microsystems, honored the College of Engineering with their presence and insights at the Goff Smith Lecture and the 2004 College graduation exercises, respectively.

NASA BioScience and Engineering Institute Awarded to University of Michigan

To develop a new generation of space bioengineers, NASA has named the University of Michigan the sole recipient of the new interdisciplinary NASA BioScience and Engineering Institute. Jim Grotberg, professor, Biomedical Engineering, is principal investigator.

ARC Phase III Secures $40 Million Government Research Contract

The College of Engineering has received a $40 million Army research contract to continue funding the U-M led Automotive Research Center. It’s the largest research contract in the history of the U-M College of Engineering.

AOSS Scientists Integral to New Fusion Science Center

Research by scientists in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences will be integral to research activities at the new Center for Multiscale Plasma Dynamics, part of a newly funded Department of Energy Fusion Science Center. The center will focus on fundamental issues in fusion plasma science.

CASE Honors Michigan Engineering’s 150th Anniversary Web Site

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education’s fifth district (CASE V) awarded the College’s 150th Anniversary Web site a Silver Award for Individual Web Page or Section during the first-ever “Pride of CASE V” awards program in Chicago.

College Researchers Play Roles in Space Explorations 

The Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer, built in part by the AOSS Space Physics Research Laboratory, analyzed gases in Titan's atmosphere and the composition of its surface.

Artist's rendering of Huygens on Titan.

On January 14, 2005, the Huygens probe, launched about three weeks earlier from the Cassini spacecraft, parachuted to the surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn. Scientists expected its life expectancy to be minutes, but Huygens kept sending data to Earth for three hours. Part of its success was due to the hardiness of the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, an instrument built in part by engineers at Michigan Engineering’s Space Physics Research Laboratory. When Huygens finally went silent after sending an unexpected abundance of data, AOSS Professor Sushil Atreya and Emeritus Professor George Carignan Ñ integral members of the Huygens research team Ð set to work on one of their main tasks in the mission: deciphering what all the data means.

 

AOSS is also deeply involved with the exploration of Mars:

• Associate Professor Nilton Renno served as an advisor for a team that monitored and advised on weather conditions for the descents of NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity, the rovers currently exploring Mars.
• In 2007, NASA’s Scout program will place the Phoenix lander near Mars’ north pole to dig for evidence of water in the Red Planet’s past. Renno is a co-investigator for the mission.
• Research Professor Stephen Bougher, is an advisor on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project and is involved in the development of a technique called aerobraking, which will manipulate the orbiter into its desired path.
• An AOSS spectrometer aboard the Mars Express is returning data about Mars’ atmosphere and surface.
• College of Engineering space scientists are submitting proposals to take part in the Mars Science Laboratory mission, expected to launch in 2009.