Fall

  Sara Knutson

  Anjani Polit

Sara Knutson and Anjani Polit were each recognized by NASA for their outstanding work with the OSIRIS-REx mission.

Sara received an individual Robert H. Goddard Award for her work as Science Operations Lead Engineer at the OSIRIS-REx Science Processing and Operations Center. The citation for Sara’s Exceptional Achievement Award for Engineering reads, "For systems engineering excellence, teamwork, and leadership of the science implementation activities on the OSIRIS-REx mission.” 

Anjani and the OSIRIS-REx Planning and Implementation team she leads were honored with the Robert H. Goddard Award for their outstanding work in planning the science observations of Bennu. Anjani was previously awarded a Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement Award for Engineering by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Goddard Awards recognize exemplary achievements in spaceflight.

Congratulations to LPL alums Nancy Chabot (1999), DART Coordination Lead, and Andy Rivkin (1997), DART Co-Investigation Team Lead. On November 24, NASA launched its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. DART is heading to the near-Earth binary asteroid Didymos, where, in September 2022, it will smash into Didymos' moonlet, called Dimorphos. The goal is to test if the technique, which will alter Dimorphos' speed and, consequently, its orbit around Didymos, could be used to defend the Earth from potential impactors.

Learn more about DART from Nancy and Andy at the links below:

• Gravity Assist: How to Move an Asteroid, with Nancy Chabot
• In a First Test of Its Planetary Defense Efforts, NASA's Going to Shove an Asteroid
• NASA is ramming a spacecraft into an asteroid as part of a planetary defense test mission
• NASA’s DART Mission Could Help Cancel an Asteroid Apocalypse

We would like to thank all those who have donated to LPL in 2021. Thanks to everyone for supporting research, education, and outreach at LPL.

Indujaa Ganesh is the recipient of an Amelia Earhart Fellowship for 2021. The $10,000 fellowship is awarded each year by Zonta International to up to 35 women pursuing doctoral degrees in aerospace engineering and space sciences. The fellowship was established in 1938 in honor of Amelia Earhart, famed pilot and member of the Zonta Clubs of Boston and New York. Indujaa is a fifth-year student working with Associate Professor Lynn Carter. 

In the spring 2021 newsletter, we reported that Indujaa received the 2021 Curson Travel Award; you can read more about her research and recent summer field work by visiting the the Curson Travel Award site. 

On the first day of our trip, we travelled to Texas Canyon, where we visited the Triangle T Guest Ranch and exceptional granite outcrops with spherical weathering. Folks at the ranch kindly let our group explore the rock formations and guided us to see exceptional Native American petroglyphs. We then visited Willcox Playa and hiked to Fort Bowie to learn more about the region’s cultural history. The next day, we explored Chiricahua National Monument, including ancient volcanoes with spectacular hoodoo formations eroded into the 27-million-year-old Turkey Creek ignimbrite deposit. Our group of sixteen visited Massai Point, hiked the "Echo Canyon Trail," and climbed to the top of Sugarloaf to see the exceptional geologic history exposed within the walls of the valley.

For the final day or our trip, we crossed into Cave Creek Canyon, which is the largest and most biologically diverse canyon in the region. We then visited the Chiricahua Desert Museum and explored monogenetic volcanoes in San Bernardino Volcanic Field, which include exceptional mantle xenoliths. On the way home to Tucson, we enjoyed the final student presentations with ice cream in Tombstone. After two-years, it was great to explore the beautiful geology and cultural history of the Southwest again, and students are looking forward to exploring the Mojave Desert next semester with Professor Shane Byrne.

You can support the LPL field trip with a gift to the Wilkening-Sill endowment.