2016 AAS GN&C Conference

2016 AAS GN&C Conference 2016 AAS GN&C Conference
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The Rocky Mountain Section of the AAS is excited to invite you to the 39th Annual AAS Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference from February 5th through February 10th, 2016. The conference will host topics covering the entire lifecycle

of GN&C for spacecraft and sensors while reflecting some of the most relevant and current topics in the industry. In keeping with the desire to build the next generation of engineers, the conference will again host STEMscape – an outreach to over 100 local high school students and educators.

As always, Advances in GN&C will continue as an anchor session and will examine the current state-of-the-art and the future of GN&C. New for 2016, we will include tutorial opportunities between sessions led by industry leaders covering a variety of “beyond the textbook” topics.

Several upcoming missions require a low thrust and a high total delta-V capability. Consequently, one key focus area for this year’s conference will cover the hardware and mission planning aspects of emerging propulsion technology and will include a dedicated session on In Space Propulsion Innovations. The community has also seen a growth in missions that require the ability to navigate relative to another body. Therefore, we will have sessions focusing on optical navigation, servicing and encounters beyond earth. As greater navigation accuracy is sought across a variety of terrestrial and orbital applications, our GNSS Precision Position Navigation and Timing session will look at the strides being made to refine precision and increase availability across a diverse set of assets.

 

The conference will have sessions addressing our community’s growing interest in reducing launch costs through both hosted payloads and innovative approaches to alternate launch vehicles. As our community has also seen pressure to reduce total costs in part by reducing spacecraft and component masses, a forward looking session will cover the miniaturization of GN&C components. Continuing our tradition of welcoming those new to the industry and based on the stellar presentations over the

last three years, Student Innovations in GN&C will feature a student competition with scholarship prizes. After looking forward to the great emerging work of the students, we will do a retrospective of the challenges faced by our pioneers in GN&C. Wrapping up the conference will be Recent Experiences, a traditional session with candid revelations of the successes and failures, trials, and tribulations encountered by your colleagues in the space industry.

The conference will again have two Classified Sessions on Advances in GN&C and Recent Experiences at the beginning of the conference for participants who have proper clearances. This session offers a unique opportunity to share and network at a level not usually available to many in our GN&C community. Monday evening the conference will host a networking opportunity. Family events include the perennial favorite Technical Exhibits and buffet on Saturday night. This is a great opportunity to socialize with friends and colleagues. Our diverse attendance and agenda offers interaction with industry, government, and academia personnel and state-of-the-art technology.

Both new and veteran conference attendees will appreciate the expanded technical content featured this year. In addition to the paper presentations, a daily Poster Session will be integrated with and highlighted during the conference.