Biography
Jason Cornelius is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and Doctoral Student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Penn State. Originally from the small town of Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, his current research supports the NASA Dragonfly mission that will launch a planetary aerial vehicle (space helicopter) to the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Jason has previously worked with the Aeromechanics Office at NASA Ames, who contributed to the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the Flight Technology R&D and Mechanical Groups at Bell Helicopter and has also spent considerable amounts of time in both Russia and China. His future career plans involve supporting the continued manned and unmanned exploration of space and working to develop international teams to achieve these goals.
Talk Abstract
Planetary aerial vehicles (PAV) have long been proposed as an advanced means of exploration for various celestial bodies throughout the solar system. With the recent landing and highly successful deployment of the Mars Ingenuity Helicopter, more interest has been developing in potential future missions to support scientific exploration using these vehicles. The talk will cover the first helicopter to fly in space, Ingenuity, as well as the next PAV that is currently under development, Dragonfly.