Aeronautical and astronautical engineering

MIT engineers elected to national academyThree engineers are among this year’s 69 new National Academy of Engineering members.

Daniel Hastings to step down as dean for undergraduate educationFollowing seven years of administrative leadership, Hastings will return to the MIT faculty.

AIAA honors David Mindell for ‘Digital Apollo’MIT professor’s book earns Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award.

All that is solid melts into air: Tomás Saraceno visits MITCAST visiting artist creates inflatable and airborne biospheres: speculative models for alternate ways of living.

Driving drones can be a dragStudy shows distractions may alleviate boredom and improve drone operators’ performance.

Paintballs may deflect an incoming asteroidWith 20 years’ notice, paint pellets could cause an asteroid to veer off course.

Researchers examine health impacts of more U.K. runwaysStudy: An expanded Heathrow Airport would lead to 100 more pollution-related early deaths annually in the U.K. by 2030.

MIT alums recount their Martian experiencesSeveral AeroAstro alumni return to campus to describe landing the Curiosity rover on Mars.

Department snapshot: Aeronautics and AstronauticsAeroAstro takes off in new directions — prompting a 50 percent spike in new undergraduate enrollments.

Open Education on the Move: An Interview with Vijay KumarDirector of MIT's Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT) discusses some of the key concepts propelling the open education movement.

Inauguration festivities off to a stimulating startInnovation symposium touches on a dizzying array of topics, with themes of interdisciplinary collaboration, energy and innovation for the developing world.

NASA-JPL director Charles Elachi talks about latest Mars missionCuriosity is the most ambitious planetary rover mission ever, but it’s just one of the many exploratory projects JPL is undertaking.

MIT's Man Vehicle Laboratory turns 50Celebrating anniversary with daylong symposium on Sept. 14

MIT-developed ‘microthrusters’ could propel small satellitesAs small as a penny, these thrusters run on jets of ion beams.

Research update: SPHERES to get powerful magnets and gogglesNew wireless power and camera setups will expand the mini-satellites’ vision and navigation capabilities.

New aircraft capable of fast, accurate and repeatable flightCSAIL's Robot Locomotion Group unveils new computer-controlled aircraft that can perform knife-edge turns.

AeroAstro’s Greitzer to receive Baker Teaching Award

Engineering a safer worldWorkshop explores safety in nuclear power plants, occupational health, aviation and medicine.

School of Engineering to explore collaboration with ITASix-month evaluation will examine the feasibility of a collaboration.

A biplane to break the sound barrierCheaper, quieter and fuel-efficient biplanes could put supersonic travel on the horizon.

Tiny 3-D chipsMIT researchers develop a new approach to producing three-dimensional microchips.

National Engineers Week: A Q&A with Nancy LevesonOn system safety and the book "Engineering a Safer World:Systems Thinking Applied to Safety"

National Engineers Week: A Q&A with Olivier de WeckOn engineering systems and the book Engineering Systems: Meeting Human Needs in a Complex Technological World

Robots go head to head, 250 miles above EarthThird annual Zero Robotics competition pits robots against each other on the International Space Station.

MIT faculty see promise in American manufacturingStudy group is tackling hard questions about what it will take to stoke renewal.

Speed limit for birdsMIT researchers find critical speed above which birds — and drones — are sure to crash.

At a crossroadsNew research predicts which cars are likeliest to run lights at intersections.