2026 Sep: Missing publications updated
An audit of this page turned up a number of items that were never listed here,
some going back years. They are now in place, along with corrected citations,
DOIs throughout, and locally hosted PDFs wherever licensing allows.
Special callout to AI on the space edge: the Keck Institute for Space
Studies final report on Nebulae: Deep-Space Computing Clouds, which I led,
is now posted here in full. It argues that the self-contained,
one-mission-at-a-time paradigm will not scale, and lays out what it takes to
deploy computing, storage, networking, and cloud services as shared
infrastructure across the solar system — Vigilant Instruments doing science
analysis onboard, a Data Server in the Sky, an Observing System in the Sky, and
Data Cyclers to physically haul data home.
#
Nebulae: Deep-Space Computing Clouds
Joshua Vander Hook, Richard Doyle, Valerie Fox, David English, Ashish A. Mahabal (study leads), and 34 others
Study Report prepared for the W. M. Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS). California Institute of Technology, November 2021. Study held August 2019 – September 2020. Related:
the IEEE Aerospace concept-of-operation paper.
[pdf]
[doi]
[caltechauthors]
Also previously missing:
#
Symbiotic Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and Unmanned Surface Vehicle System
Volkan Isler, David Mulla, Pratap Tokekar,
Joshua Vander Hook
US Patent 9,464,902 B2, filed September 2014, granted October 2016. Assigned to the Regents of the University of Minnesota. Covers the
precision agriculture UAV/UGV sensor planning work.
[pdf]
[patent]
#
IceNode: a Buoyant Vehicle for Acquiring Well-Distributed, Long-Duration Melt Rate Measurements under Ice Shelves
Evan B. Clark, Andrew Branch, Rebecca Castano, Ian Fenty, Christine Gebara, Ara Kourchians, Daniel Limonadi, Gauri Madhok, Patrick McGarey, Flora Mechentel, Kelly Nguyen, Tyler Okamoto, Eric Rignot, Federico Rossi, Brendan Santos, Justin Schachter, Michael Schodlok, Dane Schoelen, Timothy Stanton,
Joshua Vander Hook, Ben Wolsieffer, Xavier Zapien
OCEANS 2021: San Diego – Porto pp 1–10, September 2021.
[doi]
#
Balloon Infrasound Networks for Investigating the Venus Interior
J. A. Cutts, S. Krishnamoorthy, J. M. Jackson, P. K. Byrne, A. Komjathy, M. Pauken, D. Mimoun, R. Garcia, D. Bowman,
J. Vander Hook, F. Rossi
52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. 2021. Abstract #2319.
[pdf]
[usra]
#
Toward Economically Addressing Surface Science Questions on Mars with Distributed Instruments
M. Wronkiewicz, R. C. Anderson, S. Bandyopadhyay, E. J. Brandon, A. Goel,
J. Vander Hook, M. Mischna, M. Villarreal, F. Rossi
Low-Cost Science Mission Concepts for Mars Exploration. Pasadena, CA, 2022. Abstract #5049.
[pdf]
[usra]
#
A Simulation Framework for Computation Sharing in Mars Spacecraft Network
Tiago Stegun Vaquero,
Joshua Vander Hook, Martina Troesch, Steve Chien
System Demonstrations and Exhibits, International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS). Delft, Netherlands, June 2018.
[pdf]
[conference copy]
Several new posts on the personal blog on AI, books, and technical projects:
https://jodavaho.io
2025 Mar: New journal article, and catching up on publications
Our study of surface-deployed distributed instruments for planetary science,
with Federico Rossi and colleagues from JPL, is out in the Planetary Science
Journal:
#
In situ, Surface-deployed Distributed Instruments for Planetary Science: Scientific Opportunities and Technology Feasibility
Federico Rossi, Robert C. Anderson, Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, Erik J. Brandon, Ashish Goel,
Joshua Vander Hook, Michael Mischna, Michaela Villarreal, Mark Wronkiewicz
The Planetary Science Journal 6(3):66, March 2025
[pdf]
[pdf(arxiv)]
[doi]
The publications page also caught up on other
post-JPL items: two Acta Astronautica articles (autonomous balloon teams for
Venus volcanism, and low-thrust trajectories for the Solar System Pony
Express), the Lunar Leader workshop paper from AAMAS 2024, a Planetary
Exploration Horizon 2061 book chapter, and the M2PEM patent (US 11,599,109 B2).
2024 Aug: Joined Flight Science
I joined Flight Science as the first
hire, as Planning Scientist. I design, build, and deploy the optimization and
planning pipelines that estimate and reroute flights in response to weather and
other disruptions — Rust on AWS, and a growing team.
2024 Apr: The last three years have been nuts
The last three years have been crazy. We:
- Had two kids
- Moved to Minnesota
- Worked at JPL, Amazon, Outrider, and now at Shield.ai
- Started doing freelance consulting and development for Rust, AWS, Robotics, and Optimization
- Launch two products, neither of which have many money yet!
I won't pontificate on all these, but each of them have taught me a ton. I have loved doing project-based work on the side, esp in the areas mentioned above.
Please reach out if you want to work together! And follow along with more personal news at jodavaho.io
2022 Apr: Guest lecture for CS5552: Sensing and Estimation at University of Minnesota
#
Sensing and Estimation for Past and (maybe) Future Mars Rover
University of Minnesota, CS5552 Sensing and Estimation Guest Lecture April 2022, Virtual.
[slides]
2022 Apr: 3 new journal articles accepted recently
If you read What the Navy Shoots for Target Practice by Gizmodo, you will probably be interested in this article, in which we discuss the automation of the target boats for safer, more dynamic, and more cost-effective tests.
#
Swarms of Pirates: Red Team Exercises using Autonomous High-Speed Maneuvering Surface Vessels
Joshua Vander Hook,
William Seto,
Viet Nguyen,
Zaki Hasnain,
Carlyn-Ann Lee,
Liam Gallagher,
Tyler Halpin-Chan,
Varun Varahamurthy,
Moises Angulo,
Field Robotics, Special Issue: Unmanned Marine Systems 2(1): 872–909, May 2022.
[pdf]
[doi]
[bib]
The second article concerns the results of our 2021 NASA NIAC study in which a relay network of small sattelites can act like a sneaker network to bring back massive data from Mars.
#
Cycler Orbits and Solar System Pony Express
Marc Sanchez Net,
Etienne Pellegrini,
Wilson Parker,
Joshua Vander Hook,
Robyn Woollands,
Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets 59(3): 861–870, May 2022.
[doi]
[bib]
And finally, we presented our results on studying distributed computation for Mars missions with IEEE.
#
Multi-Robot On-site Shared Analytics Information and Computing
Joshua Vander Hook,
Federico Rossi,
Tiago Stegun Vaquero,
Martina Troesch,
Marc Sanchez-Net,
Joshua Schoolcraft,
Jean-Pierre de la Croix,
Steve Chien,
IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems 10(1): 169–181, March 2023.
[pdf]
[pdf(arxiv)]
[doi]
[bib]
[github]
2021 Dec: AENAC Devices
I've formed a small device design studio that will specialize in speciality networking and embedded computing. More to come!
2021 Mar: NIAC Phase 1 Selection for Solar System Pony Express
Our concept, the "Solar System Pony Express", was selected for a NASA Innovative Advanced Concept Phase 1 Study! The concept proposed was using a network of satellites to shuttle data (in hard drives) to do massive data transfers from Mars to Earth, to augment the normal electromagnetic transmission (e.g., radio / lasers).
You can read the announcement and a few of the preliminarly studies here:
- NASA.gov Announcement
#
Data Mules on Cycler Orbits for High-Latency, Planetary-Scale Data Transfers
Marc Sanchez-net, Etienne Pellegrini,
Joshua Vander Hook,
Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT 2020.
[pdf]
[bib]
[slides]
[doi]
#
Solar System Data Mules: Analysis for Mars and Jupiter
Marc Sanchez-net, Etienne Pellegrini, Wilson Parker,
Joshua Vander Hook,
Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT 2021.
[pdf]
[bib]
[doi]
2021 Mar: Got to present at the Lockheed Martin Seminar at UMD
#
AI for Spacecraft at NASA JPL
Virtual talk, 2021.
[slides]
2021 Mar: Excited to present to WVU!
#
AI for Spacecraft at NASA JPL
Virtual talk, 2021.
[slides]
2021 Jan: Presented to AAS 2021
#
Nebulae: KISS In-Situ Cloud Computing Workshop for Space Exploration Missions
American Astronomical Society 2021, Virtual.
[slides]
2021 Jan: A few publications related to Decadal Survey and the MOSAIC Planetary Mission Concept
NASA funded study on a constellation of orbiters for studying soil, atmosphere, ionosphere interactions at Mars. A huge effort across mutiple institutions, in which I played a small part.
And, an LPSC conference presentation by Rob Lillis, the PI, on the topic.
-
#
MOSAIC: Mars Orbiters for Surface Atmospheric and Ionospheric Connections
R. J. Lillis, N. G. Heavens, L. Montabone, S. Guzewich, S. M. Curry, P. Withers, M. Chaffin, T. N. Harrison, C. O. Ao, D. L. Mitchell, J.G. Luhmann, J. I. Deighan, M. Kahre, A. Brecht, C. Neish, ,
J. Vander Hook, I. Smith, , S. L. England, B. M. Jakosky, S. Matousek, C. Edwards
AGU Fall Meeting 2020.
[pdf]
[bib]
We study the total improvement over future Deep space network capabilities if you include a small satellite data mule (aka Pony Express).
#
Solar System Data Mules: Analysis for Mars and Jupiter
Marc Sanchez-net, Etienne Pellegrini, Wilson Parker,
Joshua Vander Hook,
Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference. Big Sky, MT 2021.
[pdf]
[bib]
[doi]
Older news (2011–2020)
