Aero100

Donald Mielke, BSE 1967, Retired Attorney

As a graduate of the Aerospace program as well as a Science Eng degree that year and Project Manager of the fifth senior Systems Design Course (Aero 483) conceived and conducted by Professor Wilbur Nelson, I wanted to share about the most influential course I have ever taken. It was the Aerospace Systems Design Course and ours was Project SPECTRUM (Solar Probe Experiment Created for Technological Research by the University of Michigan). Read More »

The US National Transportation Safety has selected John DeLisi as the new director of the Office of Aviation Safety (OAS).

DeLisi will assume his new position on June 2 following the retirement of Tom Haueter, the current director.

DeLisi has been serving as the Deputy Director of OAS since 2007.  During his 20 years with the NTSB, he has overseen numerous major  investigations, including the January 2009 ditching of US Airways flight  1549 in the Hudson River and the February 2009 Colgan Air accident in  Buffalo, New York. Read full story at Air Traffic Management.net

SpaceX’s Dragon, the first cargo-carrying private spacecraft, made its way back to Earth Thursday, and it was helped along the way by Michigan engineers.

“Our students are flocking to companies like SpaceX,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, professor of space science and aerospace engineering at U-M. “Many of them started out at another company and then left to go work there. They are leaving higher-paid, more stable jobs for this, which is amazing because it is much higher-risk and more challenging.”

There are more than 20 U-M graduates who have been employed by SpaceX, Zurbuchen estimated, and many are involved with the Dragon mission. While SpaceX declined to allow their engineers to speak to the media during the mission, a search for their employees confirmed that estimate.

Read full story at the College of Engineering site

SpaceX’s successful Dragon mission marks the first time a privately-run company has docked with the International Space Station and delivered cargo and supplies to its crew. The mission is the first of twelve scheduled flights contracted by NASA, at the price tag of $1.6 billion dollars.