June 10, 2005 —
Anita Sengupta, a doctoral student in aerospace engineering and a
senior engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has won the top
award for best technical paper in 2004 by the Electric Propulsion
Technical Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics (AIAA).
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Anita Sengupta watches performance readings during a test of the ion engine in
JPL's Endurance Test Facility. |
Sengupta’s paper, entitled “An Overview of the Results From the 30,000
Hour Life Test of Deep Space 1 Flight Spare Engine,” was submitted to
and presented at the 2004 AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion
Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Sengupta will receive her
award and a certificate of technical merit at an AIAA Joint Propulsion
Conference to be held July 13, 2005, in Tucson, Arizona.
Sengupta’s research has focused on understanding the plasma physics
inside an ion thruster, which powered a 1998 NASA spacecraft designed
to test 12 new technologies. Ion propulsion engines use xenon gas as
propellant, and solar energy to ionize the gas, which is 10 times more
efficient than conventional rocket propellants.
In her award-winning paper, Sengupta validated the solar electric
propulsion thruster technology used on the 1998 NASA Deep Space 1
mission for long-duration flight (approximately 30,000 hours or more),
enabling it to be used as a primary propulsion system on future NASA
science missions.
“The results of our tests were mission-enabling for NASA Discovery
class missions, such as the Dawn mission, a spacecraft tentatively set
for launch in 2006 that will use three ion engines to rendezvous with
two asteroids in deep space,” Sengupta said.
Sengupta has also studied ways of improving the ion engines, which, if
adopted, “will enable fewer thrusters for a given mission and allow the
thrusters to be operated at higher efficiencies.”
Sengupta has been a working engineer and part-time USC student
since receiving her bachelor-of-science degree from Boston University
in 1998. She earned her master-of-science degree in aerospace
engineering/astronautics in 2000 through USC’s Distance Education
Network (DEN) program. In 2001, she began a USC doctoral program in
aerospace engineering, which she will complete in July 2005.
--Diane Ainsworth