“We are delighted to honor Professor Glenn Lightsey with this prestigious distinction. His passion for space-related research and his commitment to student development are well-aligned with the John Young Chair,” said AE Chair Mitchell Walker, the inaugural recipient of the honor in 2022.

Lightsey’s research on space systems technology, including small satellites, space exploration, propulsion, satellite operations, and space systems engineering, has elevated him to a national stage. He has been a driving force in the miniaturization of spacecraft, a movement that has revolutionized the industry by providing greater access to space.

His contributions to the field of space technology span over two decades. He joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2015, coming from The University of Texas at Austin. He has authored over 180 technical articles and publications, and his role as the associate editor-in-chief of the Journal of Small Satellites underscores his influence in the academic community. As an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Fellow and a founding member of the AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee, he stays on the cutting edge of space technology.  

Starting 2018, Lightsey and his team developed the propulsion system for the small satellite BioSentinel that was launched aboard NASA’s Artemis I mission in 2022. The 3U CubeSat carried two strains of yeast to understand the impact of deep space radiation on living organisms. 

The AE professor also served as Georgia Tech’s co-principal investigator for NASA’s Lunar Flashlight project. Lightsey and his team of students developed the propulsion system for the Lunar Flashlight CubeSat and operated the satellite in interplanetary space, which became the first-ever interplanetary spacecraft operated by students. 

Another flight project Lightsey’s team contributed to is a NASA mission called Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) that will observe the solar environment to develop 3D maps. Lightsey’s team built six additively manufactured cold gas propulsion systems for a group of small satellites, which will launch into a near-geosynchronous orbit later this year.

Current Projects

Lightsey and his team are currently in the design phase for NASA’s Green Propulsion Dual Mode (GPDM) project. GPDM is a future technology demonstration mission led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center that will fly a satellite using a single liquid propellant to fuel high-thrust chemical monopropellant and high-efficiency electrospray thrusters.

Lightsey’s research group is also participating in a multi-university CubeSat formation flying mission that aims to image the sun in high resolution and reveal energy-release sites in the solar corona. The project, VISORS: Virtual Super-Resolution Optics Using Reconfigurable Swarms, is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.