Grainger Engineering in Space

Cameron Jones ('12 B.S., '18 M.S.) was selected from more than 8,000 applicants for the 2025 class of NASA astronaut candidates. He and nine others will complete two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments.

Champaign-Urbana Aerospace, a local company founded in 1998 by six current and former Grainger Engineering faculty members, develops and produces aerospace technologies such as space propulsion systems, advanced aerospace materials, simulation tools and plasma technology.

As one of the lead scientists on the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, physics professor Charles Gammie was instrumental in bringing the world its first image of a black hole in 2019.

Distinguished Grainger Engineering alumna MiMi Aung shares her thoughts on overseeing the operations for NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, which landed on Mars along with the Perseverance Rover in 2021.

Illinois physicists led an ambitious flight to the furthest reaches of the atmosphere, collecting data via a floating telescope called SPIDER to reveal new details on the cosmic microwave background radiation and the galactic dust that conceals it.

Grainger Engineering researchers have recently discovered that a spacecraft’s protective carbon material can degrade beneath its head shield’s outer surface — where structural failure could threaten the life of the vehicle.

Grainger engineers are launching their game-changing Multifunctional Structures for Attitude Control (MSAC) technology — which precisely rotates a spacecraft in any direction — for a crucial test flight in October.

Last November, professor Paul Kwiat made history when his Space Entanglement and Annealing Quantum Experiment (SEAQUE) was launched to the International Space Station on a SpaceX rocket.

Researchers are starting a new phase of Mission Illinois, a study that will send a composite tube manufacturing machine to the International Space Station to produce new materials for space construction.

Scientists are working to enable a near real-time view of the entire Earth so we are better prepared to tackle any emergencies — from monitoring melting polar ice to fighting wildfires and more.