Bobby Braun

Braun awarded 2020 Durand Lecture for Public Service

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 15:51:05 +0000

Braun awarded 2020 Durand Lecture for Public Service Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/06/2020 - 08:51

Jeff Zehnder

Bobby Braun has been recognized with a major award from the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics in Orlando, FL today.

AIAA announced that Braun, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the ��, was selected as the 2020 recipient of the Durand Lecture for Public Service.

Named in honor of early aviation leader William F. Durand, the first civilian chair of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (the precursor to NASA), this award is presented for notable achievements by a scientific or technical leader whose contributions have led directly to the growth in understanding and application of the science and technology of aeronautics and astronautics for the betterment of humankind.

Braun has served as dean of CU Engineering since January 2017. He is a national leader in space technology, planetary exploration, and entry, descent, and landing systems with contributions that span academia, industry, and government service.

Braun will deliver the plenary lecture today as part of the 2020 AIAA Science and Technology Forum in Orlando, Florida. His presentation is titled Space technology: An investment in our future.

“I am proud of the team I helped to assemble in Washington, DC who crafted the NASA Space Technology programs,” Braun said. “These efforts have been going strong for nearly a decade and are building the technology base required for NASA’s future missions in science and exploration while proving the capabilities and lowering the cost for space activities.”

“It’s exciting to tell the story of the creation of these programs which are now part of the very fabric of our nation’s future in space."

Later this month, Braun will join the executive leadership team of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, as Director of Solar System Exploration.

He was nominated for the Durand Lecture by Brian Argrow, Chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

“Given Bobby’s world of experience in spaceflight and NASA’s plans to go back to the Moon and travel to Mars, he was a perfect candidate. The lecture will give him a chance to talk about the technical challenges and opportunities for future missions with the broader engineering community,” Argrow said.

Braun is the third CU Boulder faculty member to receive this national honor since it was established in 1984. He follows Professor Dick Seebass, who earned the award in 1994, also while serving as dean of the college, and Professor Donald Hearth in 1988.

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Ball Corporation contributes more than $1 million to CU Boulder

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:17:49 +0000

Ball Corporation contributes more than $1 million to CU Boulder Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/23/2019 - 08:17

CU Boulder announced two major gifts Thursday from Ball Corporation and its foundation, including a $1 million gift from Ball to support the university’s new Aerospace Engineering Sciences building opening this fall.

The Ball Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Ball, also made a $104,000 grant for scholarships to grow the pool of diverse talent through the BOLD (Broadening Opportunity through Leadership and Diversity) program in CU engineering and EXCEL program in the Leeds School of Business.

The Ball investments are the latest commitments to the university in a long partnership that spans more than six decades.

CU Boulder was an early catalyst for the company entering the aerospace industry in 1956 with the founding of the Ball Brothers Research Corporation. This new research group embraced many CU faculty and graduate students who had been part of the Upper Air Laboratory (now LASP). Ball Aerospace has since excelled in developing aerospace technologies and services for the U.S. government.

“Ball Corporation is a leader in so many ways in our community and we’re thankful for their partnership in developing the workforce of the future,” says Bobby Braun, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science. “Ball embodies the term ‘good corporate citizen.’ In addition to its generous financial support, the company’s leadership and employees are committed to volunteering, and advising our students and faculty.”

CU partners with Ball in many ways across the campus, including senior engineering design projects, NASA contracts, and student professional development. This latest investment breaks ground for several new initiatives.

“We are pleased to support a strengthening and expansion of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and look forward to the impact it will make for the students, faculty and the pipeline of talent for industry,” said John Hayes, Ball chairman, president and CEO. “We are committed to working with CU to develop this talent through our scholarship support and mentoring of students by Ball employees.”

The BOLD Center provides holistic support for engineering students through an array of academic, social and professional development programs. BOLD scholarships play a key role in encouraging students to choose to attend CU Boulder Engineering and Applied Science, to connect with a community of peers, persist to graduation and achieve high academic success.

Ball also is supporting students in the CU Leeds school, which is committed to ensuring access to students from underrepresented, first-generation and low-income backgrounds who may not have been afforded the opportunities to participate in high-stake test or college admissions preparation. To ensure promising students are not overlooked, Leeds carefully selects applicants who meet this demographic and demonstrate resiliency, talent and promise to interview for the Leeds EXCEL Scholars program.

Scholarship support adds another facet to Ball’s support of CU Boulder students. The company has a strong recruiting and professional development presence on campus, including career and internship fairs, networking events, activities during National Engineers Week and a mentoring program through the BOLD Center. Hayes also spoke at last year’s EXCEL Summer Bridge Program and EXCEL students have participated in Ball’s Diversity and Inclusion Day.

In addition to a long-running collaboration in aerospace, CU and Ball are also working together on the sustainability initiatives of the college, among them, the LEED Gold certification of the new Aerospace Engineering Sciences building and the College of Engineering and Applied Science’s plastics-free initiative launching this fall.

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Inquiry: Talking Moon and Mars with Engineering Dean Bobby Braun

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 17:34:34 +0000

Inquiry: Talking Moon and Mars with Engineering Dean Bobby Braun Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/04/2019 - 11:34

The dean of CU Boulder's College of Engineering & Applied Science is a former NASA chief technologist. Here he talks about the moon, Mars and why we should think there's life on other planets.

There’s a lot of talk about sending humans back to the moon. Do you think that should be a high priority?
The U.S. space program should always have a flagship goal. When the United States is fully committed to achieving its space goals, our nation benefits in many ways — economically, in national security and with quality of life. Our nation should commit to becoming deep space explorers.

What could we learn from another moon visit that would help us put people on other planets — Mars, say?
Returning to the moon is one path to reduce some of the operations risk of a human Mars mission. The moon is much closer and therefore a safer step. While there are distinct technologies needed for surface operations on Mars relative to the moon, learning how to live and work in space beyond low-Earth orbit will require new space transportation systems, habitation systems, autonomy and navigation technologies.

Could we get humans to Mars now? Could we get them back to Earth?
Yes. Absolutely. With the technology currently available, we could land humans on Mars and return them safely to Earth. No Nobel prizes in physics (like those CU already has to its name) need be won — we know the hardware and approach it would require. However, that question hinges on much more than the technological aspects of the mission, including stable support from Congress and the American people, as well as alignment among all facets of the space community — government, academia and industry.

Do you expect this will happen in your lifetime?
Yes. We are certainly trending closer and closer, as a nation and as a society. Personally, I’ve been dreaming of seeing humans walk on Mars ever since I watched the first U.S. planetary lander, Viking, touch down on the Mars surface over 40 years ago.

You were NASA’s chief technologist. What were some highlights of the job?
Working with Congress and the White House to create a new organization within NASA that invests in the technologies needed for future missions in space was definitely one. Creating a foundational research and technology program that extended beyond the next mission was, and still is, a critical need for an agency that plans to send humans to the moon and Mars, discover life on other planets and search for Earth-like planets around other stars. Representing the amazing work being done by the technologists and applied scientists across the agency, in academia and industry, was also the honor of my lifetime. Lastly, working across many different government agencies to help create the National Nanotechnology Initiative, National Robotics Initiative and the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership was time well spent.

How is commercial space travel likely to influence NASA’s priorities?
Industrial strength is a hallmark of the United States space program. The fact that the U.S. space industry has emerged as a major provider is extremely exciting, even enabling, for some of the national missions under consideration. NASA has been increasingly leveraging its relationship to commercial space partners. This relationship has proven to be mutually beneficial and is still growing.

CU is about to open a new aerospace engineering center. How will it make us better?
This facility will allow us to grow our pipeline for talent, connect us more closely to industry across the state and the nation and serve as a connector for aerospace activities across our campus. The new building positions us at the center of the aerospace innovation ecosystem.

You once edited the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. What’s your all-time favorite spacecraft?
Pathfinder, which landed on Mars on July 4, 1997, obviously holds a special place in my heart. I was part of the team responsible for safely landing it and the first-ever Mars rover, Sojourner, on the surface of the Red Planet.

What’s the best reason to believe there’s life on other planets?
Given the sheer size of the universe and the massive number of planets out there, one has to consider the mathematical probabilities. To me, answering this age old question is just a matter of time.

Condensed and edited.

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Scientists and dignitaries celebrate 7 decades of CU Boulder in space

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:23:23 +0000

Scientists and dignitaries celebrate 7 decades of CU Boulder in space Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/04/2019 - 09:23

In 1948, William Pietenpol, the chair of physics at the University of Colorado, assembled a team of scientists and engineers for an ambitious venture: to launch an Aerobee rocket into the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere and collect new observations of the ultraviolet radiation emanating from the sun.

Just over 70 years later, dignitaries from Colorado and beyond gathered at a gala event on March 1 to mark the anniversary of that first rocket team—the beginnings of what would become CU Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).

The guest of honor at this gala, held at the Byron R. White Stadium Club at Folsom Field, was NASA Deputy Administrator James Morhard. He was joined by U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Colorado Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera, Regents Sue Sharkey and Jack Kroll and Chancellor Philip DiStefano in toasting LASP’s success.

The research institute is the only body of its kind that has sent scientific instruments to all eight planets in the solar system, plus Pluto, the sun and a host of moons.

Daniel Baker, director of LASP, spoke at the event about the early days of the institute—when, he said, the university was just a “little house on the prairie.”

“And, of course, things have grown quite a bit from that time,” Baker said. “Today, I’m so proud of the fact that LASP is part of this ecosystem here on the Front Range.”

Chancellor DiStefano echoed that enthusiasm.

“The �� is proud of LASP’s long history of space exploration,” DiStefano said. “This is all made possible by the importance of NASA’s investment in fundamental scientific research at universities, like CU Boulder, which is among the top NASA research recipients among public universities. This investment is critical to the next generation of science discoveries, commercialization opportunities and for developing the workforce talent pipeline that Colorado and the nation need.”

But the event focused on more than growth and history. In his own remarks, Morhard described the future of space exploration in the United States, including NASA’s current race to return Americans to the moon by the 2020s.

“We are in the early steps of a journey that leads astronauts into deep space for sustainable exploration and leads the science and engineering communities to new heights of discovery,” said Morhard, who was making his first official visit since stepping into his leadership role at NASA five months ago.

Watch the livestream of remarks at the LASP 70th anniversary event.

Small and fast

For LASP, there have been many heights of discovery along the way. Pietenpol and his team—then called the Upper Air Laboratory, or “Rocket Project”—succeeded in launching their rocket from White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico in 1951.

A slideshow playing at Friday’s gala ticked off the institute’s achievements in the decades following.

LASP played a critical role, for example, in the Mariner 9 mission, the first spacecraft to orbit Mars. Instruments designed in Colorado are still riding onboard Voyager 1 and 2, satellites that were launched in 1977 and have since pushed past the boundaries of Earth’s solar system.

Some things, however, in science never change, as Baker joked in his remarks: physicists aren’t “any better dressed than they were 70 years ago.”

Top: James Morhard in front of a model Dream Chaser shuttle. Middle: Dean Bobby Braun joins Morhard on a tour of the new aerospace engineering building. Bottom: Jim Bridenstine poses with student's in "The Politics of Space." (Credits: Casey Cass/CU Boulder and Patrick Campbell/CU Boulder)

Fran Bagenal, a professor at LASP, thinks it’s important to look back on the early days of space science at CU Boulder—bad clothes and all. When she first joined the research institute 26 years ago, she said that researchers at LASP worked with small budgets, small satellites and a “can-do attitude.”

LASP has channeled that same spirit in its current work with “CubeSats,” Bagenal said. They are satellites that are about the size of a toaster oven and can be built for a fraction of the cost of a major NASA mission. CU Boulder has launched nine of these wee scientific instruments into space to date, with another four slated for the near future.

“It’s a useful perspective … to look back and think about how we can leap-frog forward,” Bagenal said.

What’s next?

Leap-frogging was the topic of conversation earlier in the week. On Thursday night, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine met with students in a space politics course on campus.

And on Friday morning, Morhard joined Bobby Braun, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, in a dusty adventure—a tour of the construction site for the future home of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, which will open this summer.

“This building will serve as a hub for the workforce of Colorado’s future aerospace industry, and will be a central part of the new ‘Aerospace Alley’ on campus,” Dean Braun said.

Donning a hard hat and standing below a model of a Dream Chaser spacecraft, a gift from the Sierra Nevada Corp., Morhard answered questions from more than a dozen CU Boulder students.

Michelle Lin, a sophomore studying aerospace, was part of that cluster. She’s currently working on a project funded by NASA through the university’s bioastronautics program.

“That’s really cool that they are visiting,” said Lin, who was also one of five students at CU Boulder to land a prestigious Brooke Owens Fellowship this year. “I get to kind of see who I’m working for.”

And Morhard had words of encouragement for future space explorers like her.

“We’re going to low-Earth orbit. We’re to going the moon, and we’re going to Mars and other planets,” he said. “The logistics that that entails are so technical and complex, and you all are going to be making the decisions on how we do that.”

Lin, at least, is game: “I hope to go to Mars someday,” she said.

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CU Experts Have A Hand In Popular National Geographic Series ‘MARS’

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 17:55:47 +0000

CU Experts Have A Hand In Popular National Geographic Series ‘MARS’ Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/05/2018 - 10:55

The National Geographic channel is spotlighting the red planet in the television series ‘MARS’ and enlisting the help of experts from the ��. Robert Braun is the Dean of the school’s college of engineering, a professor of aerospace engineering and a technical consultant for the show.

Braun, a former NASA researcher knows a thing or two about the planet having played roles in five different missions to Mars.

CU Engineering held a special public screening and panel discussion last night featuring Braun, space experts, and actors from the show.

See the whole story at CBS Denver

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CU Boulder scientists and Cassini mission grand finale

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 16:27:40 +0000

CU Boulder scientists and Cassini mission grand finale Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/15/2017 - 10:27

CU Aerospace Cassini Memories

Bobby Braun, Smead Aerospace Professor and Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science: “Years ago, I was involved in a JPL-led review of the European Space Agency Huygens probe entry, descent and landing flight system and mission design to Titan.”

Matt Rhode, Lab Coordinator, Smead Aerospace: “I built the infrared spectrometer housing when I was a student employee here in 1996, working in what at the time was the electrical engineering machine shop, now in use by Bioserve.”

Dylan Boone (Smead Scholar/Aerospace alumnus): Navigation Engineer, JPL: “I’ve worked on Cassini for 4 years now as an Orbit Determination Analyst on the Navigation Team. We fly the spacecraft, determining where it is, where it is going, and performing maneuvers to hit flyby targets and achieve science goals of the mission.

"(My) responsibilities include processing spacecraft tracking data from NASA’s Deep Space Network to compute orbit solutions, predicting the spacecraft’s future location, and reconstructing past trajectories. During my time on Cassini, the Navigation Team has supported the following activities: science observation of the icy plumes of Enceladus through occultation, discovery of tiny moonlets in Saturn’s rings, the final flyby of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and five low periapses traveling in the space between Saturn’s rings and cloud tops. At 5:55am MDT on Friday morning, Cassini will transition from spacecraft to fireball in the space of one minute."

CU Boulder Professor Larry Esposito has been eying the fabulous rings of Saturn for much of his career, beginning as a team scientist on NASA’s Pioneer 11 mission when he discovered the planet’s faint F ring in 1979.

He followed that up with observations of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s rings from the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft, which carried instruments designed and built at CU Boulder. Now, as the principal investigator on CU Boulder’s $12 million Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, Esposito and his Cassini colleagues are feeling a bit somber: The spacecraft has run out of fuel and was intentionally disintegrated in Saturn’s dense atmosphere early on the morning of Sept. 15.

“We are still making discoveries about the Saturn system studying the Cassini data, and we expect to be making them for some time,” said Esposito of CU Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). “But it is a bittersweet ending to a mission that has fascinated us as scientists and enthralled the public with images and new findings for many years.”

Discoveries galore

The UVIS instrument suite, a set of telescopes used to measure ultraviolet light from the Saturn system, has been used to study the structure and evolution of Saturn's rings; the chemistry, clouds and energy balance of Saturn and Titan; and the surfaces and atmospheres of some of Saturn's 62 known moons, said Esposito.

Launched in 1997 and pulling up at Saturn in 2004 for the first of hundreds of orbits through the planet’s system, the mission has fostered scores of dazzling discoveries. These include in-depth studies that date and even weigh the astonishing rings, the discovery of methane lakes on the icy moon Titan, water plumes found squirting from the moon Enceladus and close-up views of the bright auroras at the planet's poles.

One of Esposito’s favorite discoveries using UVIS was the detection of a huge cloud of neutral oxygen atoms in the Saturn system on approach in 2003, which puzzled scientists for years. Subsequent research by the Cassini team indicated the oxygen atoms were coming from a salty, subterranean ocean on Enceladus, which scientists think may have conditions favorable for primitive life.

How old are Saturn’s rings?

Many discoveries by Esposito and his UVIS team involve Saturn’s rings—made up of ice, rocks and moonlets as large as Mount Everest—the age of which have been debated for decades. Esposito, who used observations from the Voyager mission to compare the rings of Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune, believes Saturn’s rings may be as old as the solar system, which is believed to have formed some 4.6 billion years ago.

“When the two Voyager spacecraft passed by Saturn in 1980 and 1981, we thought the rings were relatively young,” Esposito said. “But data from Cassini are consistent with the picture that Saturn has had rings throughout its history.

“We see extensive, rapid recycling of ring material in which moons are continually shattered into ring particles, which then gather and reform moons.”

Other UVIS team members from CU Boulder include Ian Stewart, George Lawrence, William McClintock, Alain Jouchoux, Greg Holsclaw, Emilie Royer, Anya Portyankina and Michael Aye.

Esposito likened the ever-changing rings at Saturn to construction in Beijing, China, where marble from structures erected during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) is being recycled to build new structures today.

“The same sort of thing is happening with Saturn’s rings,” Esposito said. “They are renewed continually, so the rings themselves can be ancient, but the structures we see today are just part of their current manifestation. We have even watched the rings changing over the course of this mission.”

Cassini’s grand finale

The UVIS instrument was turned on during Cassini’s final dive into Saturn’s atmosphere and routed data to Earth until its final moments.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

CU Boulder is the only university in the world to have designed and built instruments that have visited every planet in the solar system, plus Pluto. LASP students control four NASA satellites from campus, and about 120 undergraduate and graduate students working are there on different aspects of flight projects, ranging from engineering and spacecraft operations to data management and science analysis.

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Five Questions for Dean Bobby Braun

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 21:00:35 +0000

Five Questions for Dean Bobby Braun Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/28/2017 - 15:00

When Robert Braun was 11, a neighbor brought him to work at the Goddard Space Center in Maryland. Braun was interested in space, and that day, the Viking 1 lander was scheduled to touch down on Mars, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to land on another planet.

The youngster stood behind the glass, looking into mission control, watching the “amazing event,” he remembers. “When it was successful, the engineers and scientists jumped up and down. For a technical person, it was like winning the Super Bowl, and I knew right then and there I wanted to work on something like that.”

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From Mars to Boulder, Bobby Braun brings cachet as new dean of the college of engineering

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 15:53:04 +0000

From Mars to Boulder, Bobby Braun brings cachet as new dean of the college of engineering Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/03/2017 - 08:53

For a good portion of his career, Bobby Braun has wrestled with the technological challenges of putting spacecraft on Mars. His landing in Boulder, where he's taking over as dean of the University of Colorado’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, proved a long-awaited but less complicated re-entry.

Continuing a career that includes a recent turn as NASA’s chief technologist, the 51-year-old Braun brings decades of research, management and collaboration in both academia and the public sector to a school he sees at a nexus of research and industry. After he left NASA, he had several inquiries from schools looking to capitalize on his experience.

CU simply made sense.

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