Aerospace Engineering at The University of Illinois

Directions Website

Aerospace Engineering at The University of Illinois Official account for the Department of Aerospace Engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

AE follows the same posting policy as the U of I:https://bit.ly/34sgaLw

First-year students in the AE 100 course Introduction to Aerospace Engineering recently completed their rocket launch pr...
10/06/2026

First-year students in the AE 100 course Introduction to Aerospace Engineering recently completed their rocket launch project. They have two goals for the mission, to make sure their "egg-stronaut" survives the landing and to reach a specific altitude of 325 feet.

Special thanks to Morgan Scott, BS '25, who is currently working on her master's degree in Materials Science & Engineering at Illinois Grainger Engineering, for taking photos at the event. Scott is an instructor for one of the sections of AE 100 this fall.

This afternoon, former NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, BS ’91, met with two large groups of students. In one, he presented ...
10/02/2026

This afternoon, former NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, BS ’91, met with two large groups of students. In one, he presented a problematic real-life scenario to tables of 5 students and asked them to decide how they would handle it.

Grainger College of Engineering filmed a fun and appropriate video using “I am an astronaut. You are the moon.”

Later, Hopkins and Ken Jacobs, Operations Project Engineer for Artemis at NASA Kennedy Space Center, met with senior design students for a Q & A.

Before leaving the Campus Instructional Facility, Hopkins checked out his “Block I” likeness on the second floor with material science MS student Morgan Scott, BS ’25 aerospace, who was helping with Hopkins’ visit.

Students in Jason Merret’s senior aircraft design course swept the top four places in the 2026 AIAA Undergraduate Team A...
10/02/2026

Students in Jason Merret’s senior aircraft design course swept the top four places in the 2026 AIAA Undergraduate Team Aircraft Design Competition – that’s first, second, second and third!

The first place team, Monkey's Fist, was led by Casey Keymolen. Other team members included Ting Yu Lee, Karsten Peters, Alex Greene, Riyad Babayev, John Klis, Emily Goodman and Cougar Forsythe.

In second place was team Boom Hitch led by Ben Folgers, with Joshua Veranga, Katie Lee, Ray Zhao, Samuel Nutlis, Eashan Paranjpe, Hamza Rimawi and Edward Niewinski.

Tied for second was Catshank led by Luke McNamara with Junyi Cao, Rushil Malik, Dillon Mulrooney, Joey Pecaro, Aadyanth Rao, Marco Soto and Jonah Wu.

Anika Knipple led team Bowline that placed third, along with team members Nicholas Djordjevic, Vivek Nair, Adrian Tayag, Ruben Benjankar, Eric Chiang, Johnny Hu and Adam Mateja.

Discover more about how the teams came out on top and what the team names all have in common at https://aerospace.illinois.edu/news/92065

Michael S. Hopkins, B.S. ’91 Illinois, MS ’92, Stanford, is a retired colonel, NASA astronaut and Space Force officer. T...
10/01/2026

Michael S. Hopkins, B.S. ’91 Illinois, MS ’92, Stanford, is a retired colonel, NASA astronaut and Space Force officer.

This week, he is receiving the 2026 University of Illinois Alumni Achievement Award and will serve as the grand marshal of the 2026 Illinois Homecoming parade on Friday, Oct. 2.

If you're in Champaign-Urbana tomorrow, cheer him on at the parade and read about some of his accomplisments at https://aerospace.illinois.edu/news/91861

09/24/2026

This is how Grainger Engineering AE PhD student, Theresa Sandborn, gets around campus.
Note her expert crowd moves.
No doubt, she’s on her way to work on multimode propulsion payload development.
Wait for it …

For the 13th year straight, a team from U of I was selected to present their space mission design at NASA’s annual Revol...
09/22/2026

For the 13th year straight, a team from U of I was selected to present their space mission design at NASA’s annual Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage competition.

RASC-AL is a NASA competition team that develops the entire, big-picture, systems-level mission design. This year’s mission was to develop lunar technologies that leverage materials available on the moon.

The team was made up of students from 13 disciplines – nine Grainger Engineering departments including aerospace, chemical, electrical, physics, civil, systems, nuclear, mechanical and computer engineering. Students from other units on campus came from astronomy, data science, mathematics and astrophysics.

The team developed MATRIX – Mining and Advanced Transformation of Regolith for Infrastructure and eXpansion and tied for the Best Prototype Award.

“It was the workhorse of our architecture because everything we were developing needed size-sorted regolith. It uses vibrations to make the larger particles sort up and smaller particles sort down. We were able to sort a spoonful of regolith in a couple seconds into four different size groups, which is insanely fast,” said team lead Hannah Speranza.

To read the full story and watch a video of the prototype in action, visit https://aerospace.illinois.edu/news/91870.

New lab-scale cryogenic aviation fuel facility takes research from design to experimentationAfter years of studying the ...
09/21/2026

New lab-scale cryogenic aviation fuel facility takes research from design to experimentation

After years of studying the possibilities of liquid hydrogen becoming the next generation of aviation fuel, Phil Ansell decided it was time to take research from conceptual designing on paper to physical production. With funding from The Grainger College of Engineering and the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and partnering with GenH2, liquid hydrogen production will be, not just possible, but palpable.

“There are a lot of near-term ideas for sustainable aviation that are good and useful but it’s time to double down on the things that are working. One research concept that is working is cryogenic fuels for aviation,” he said.

“Though, such a change to cryogenic fuels introduces a wealth of very practical challenges that can only be addressed by turning to hardware. There comes a point when it is necessary to progress beyond theoretical studies and into experiments, and I decided to raise my hand and invest in the novel capabilities that allow us to take a leading role in these efforts.”

Read the rest of the story at https://aerospace.illinois.edu/news/91851

This year’s NASA Micro-g NExT challenge was to create handles for an existing cart used for extravehicular activity on t...
09/14/2026

This year’s NASA Micro-g NExT challenge was to create handles for an existing cart used for extravehicular activity on the moon. It had to be adjustable, so astronauts of varying heights and sizes could use it comfortably, and it needed to be dust tolerant for lunar surfaces.

The proposal submitted by a team from Illinois Space Society’s Micro-g NExT was selected and tested by divers in NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory – the 40-foot-deep pool in Houston where astronauts train for spacewalks.

Aerospace undergrad Alana Falter was this year’s team lead on ATHENA -- Adjustable Tool-cart Handle for Efficient Navigational Assistance. She said the team decided to create not one set of handles, but two, along with tandem gears to allow the user to switch from one to the other.

“Honestly, we wanted to see if there were circumstances where it would be easier to use one kind of handle over another,” Falter said. “We were thinking of grip and muscle fatigue, because one handle style used mostly chest muscles, but with another, it’s more about your shoulders. We wanted to provide some options that could relieve some fatigue.”

Team members who contributed to the final report and their majors are Alana Falter, aerospace; Max Alchin, systems engineering; Katelyn Czarnowski, systems engineering, Tiana Foreman, aerospace; Lillian Hunt, aerospace; Isabel Obert, aerospace; Casimir
Pawlowski, aerospace; Sarah Gottis, geology; Logan Krussell, aerospace; William Witt, aerospace; Maggie Brummel, aerospace; Madelina Avila, molecular and cellular biology; Freya Luo, materials science; and Taranpreet Singh, astronomy.

Read the whole story at https://aerospace.illinois.edu/news/89507

Here's a great update on the Center for High-Efficiency Electrical Technologies for Aircraft as the center moves closer ...
09/10/2026

Here's a great update on the Center for High-Efficiency Electrical Technologies for Aircraft as the center moves closer to electric-powered commercial aviation with the successful demonstration of a cryogenic electric motor.

CHEETA Director Phil Ansell said the long-term goal is to develop a zero-emissions aircraft capable of maintaining the performance characteristics of a Boeing 737-800, including cruise speed, passenger capacity, range, and airport compatibility.

Address

309 Talbot Lab, 104 S Wright Street
Urbana, IL
61801

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Aerospace Engineering at The University of Illinois posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share