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(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 pp 872-909 2(1) 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, pp 1-10, 2022
[pdf(aiaa)]
[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 Networked Systems, pp TBD x(y) note:Accepted
[bib]
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]
#
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]
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
Robert Lillis, David Mitchell, Steve Matousek, et al.
NASA Planetary Science Decadal Survey, National Academies of Science August 2020.
[pdf]
[bib]
[National Academies Slides]
#
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]
Older news (2011–2020)
