A student team from Purdue University will compete in the SpaceX Hyperloop pod competition January 29th and 30th at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. Team members participated in a hyperloop class taught by faculty members, including AAE Associate Professor Alina Alexeenko.

AAE Assistant Professor Michael Grant received the Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Best Paper Award for a paper he presented at the 2015 AIAA Conference in Dallas, TX.

AAE Machinist James Younts has been with the university for 20 years. Electronics Specialist John Phillips is being recognized for 10 years of service.

As part of an ongoing collaboration known as Project Aldrin-Purdue, AAE Professor James Longuski’s senior design course will once again be evaluating Gemini and Apollo astronaut Dr. Buzz Aldrin’s plan to establish permanent human presence on Mars by 2040.

Sigma Gamma Tau held its initiation on December 8th. The honor society for Aerospace Engineering initiated 27 new members. Sigma Gamma Tau is advised by AAE Assistant Professor Michael Grant.

A functional prototype of the flagship torch designed to be used in the 2016 relay to mark Indiana’s Bicentennial was given to Gov. Mike Pence as part of Statehood Day events at the Statehouse in Indianapolis.

Students from several schools in the College of Engineering, along with Timothée Pourpoint, project manager and associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue, were on hand for the official unveiling.

An interdisciplinary team of students and faculty at Purdue University, led by AAE Associate Professor Timothee Pourpoint, has designed and built three types of torches that will be central to Indiana's bicentennial relay next year.

Devendra Verma is a PhD candidate in the school of Aeronautics and Astronautics working with Dr. Vikas Tomar on microstructure dependent dynamic fracture prediction and interface strength measurements.

A team of AAE undergraduate students has been selected by NASA to test its spaceflight hardware design in NASA’s Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams (Micro-g NExT) program. Micro-g NExT provides undergrads an opportunity to design, build, and test a tool or device that addresses a space exploration problem.

Three AAE graduate students have been selected as finalists in the Best Graduate Student Paper Competitions at the AIAA 2016 SciTech. Sangjin Lee, David Kun, and Jayaprakash Suraj Nandiganahalli are all students of associate professor Inseok Hwang.