Episode #116: Sustainability in Space

On this week's episode, we’ll discuss the increasing risk of potential collisions in our near Earth space environment as the problem of orbital debris continues to worsen, and what we can all do to become space environmentalists and better stewards of the shared commons of our sky.

My guest on today’s show, Dr. Moriba Jah, joined the Oden Institute core faculty in 2018 at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently serving as an associate professor of the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics.  His research interests are in non-gravitational astrodynamics and advanced/non-linear multi-sensor/object tracking, prediction, and information fusion.  His expertise is in space object detection, tracking, identification, and characterization, as well as spacecraft navigation.

He earned his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado at Boulder specializing in astrodynamics and statistical orbit determination.

Prior to joining UT Austin, Dr. Jah was the Director of the University of Arizona’s Space Object Behavioral Sciences with applications to Space Domain Awareness, Space Protection, Space Traffic Monitoring, and Space Debris research to name a few.  Preceding that, Dr. Jah was the lead for the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Advanced Sciences and Technology Research Institute for Astronautics and also previously served as a spacecraft navigator for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA.