Building a Tiny Open-Source Space Program: From ChipSats to Autonomous Swarms

Speaker: Zac Manchester - Associate Professor, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

4:30 P.M. Reception
5:00 P.M. Lecture
Chen 100 Lecture Hall - California Institute of Technology

Registration is required. Register here: https://bit.ly/2026_Manchester

Abstract:

The aerospace industry has experienced a dramatic shift over the last decade: Flying a spacecraft has gone from something only government agencies and large corporations could afford to something universities and small startups can accomplish on a shoestring budget. This talk is about pushing these limits – building spacecraft that are dramatically smaller, simpler, and cheaper – and taking advantage of computation, networking, and autonomy to accomplish exciting new science and exploration missions, while also bringing spaceflight within reach of more people. Recent missions that will be highlighted include KickSat-2, which deployed the four-gram Sprite – the world's smallest spacecraft; V-R3x, which demonstrated mesh networking between a group of CubeSats; and PY4, which demonstrated low-cost attitude control, formation flying, and radio-navigation capabilities on a swarm of two-kilogram satellites. Nearly all of the hardware and software created for these missions is readily available on the internet to be studied, copied, and reimagined by others.

Speaker Biography:

Zac Manchester is an Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT where he leads the Robotic Exploration Lab. His research leverages insights from physics, control theory, and optimization to enable robotic systems that can achieve the same level of agility, robustness, and efficiency as humans and animals. His lab develops algorithms for controlling a wide range of autonomous systems from cars merging onto highways to spacecraft landing on Mars. Zac Previously worked at Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and NASA Ames Research Center. He received a NASA Early Career Faculty Award in 2018, a Google Faculty Award in 2020, and an NSF CAREER Award in 2025. He has also served as Principal Investigator of four NASA small-satellite missions.