FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE WEBINAR
New Capability Allows Payloads to Experience Lunar Gravity Aboard Suborbital Rocket
May 7, 2025
Speakers
- Mark W. Hilburger, PhD, Principal Technologist, Exploration Destination, Structures, and Materials, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate
- Laki Vlachos, Senior Payload Mission Manager, Blue Origin
- Franklin L. Robinson, Thermal Engineer and Technologist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
- Aaron D. Olson, PhD, ISRU & Seals Dust Mitigation Lead, Electrostatics & Surface Physics Laboratory (ESPL), NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
- Vince Vendiola, Program Manager, Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company
- Nicholas Naclerio, PhD, Robotics Engineer, Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company
Abstract
Join us on May 7 for a session that will cover the Feb. 4 lunar gravity flight aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket system. The flight provided approximately two minutes of simulated lunar gravity, allowing researchers to test and de-risk their innovations. Flight Opportunities supported vehicle capability enhancements to enable the simulation of lunar gravity through development funding and early purchase of payload space as part of its strategic investment in the U.S. spaceflight industry.
In this session moderated by Flight Opportunities personnel, one of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate principal technologists will provide insight on how advancing technology readiness levels through flight tests feeds into technology roadmaps and infusion into farther term mission architectures. A selection of principal investigators and a representative from Blue Origin will discuss the flight test and explore lessons learned.
Speaker Bios
Dr. Mark Hilburger is NASA’s principal technologist (PT) for materials, structures, and lunar construction. His roles and responsibilities include developing technology investment plans across his assigned discipline areas in coordination with NASA Exploration Programs and Mission Directorates, identifying technology needs that will enable science and exploration missions, leading focused technology studies, and coordinating with agency capability managers in technology development activities to maintain and advance capabilities. Dr. Hilburger has also served as a research engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center and amassed over 20 years of experience in the field of structural mechanics and materials where he specialized in high-fidelity analysis, design technologies, and experimental methods for aerospace structures.
Apostolos “Laki” Vlachos is a senior payload mission manager at Blue Origin. He is responsible for planning, scheduling, and executing customer payload integration into the New Shepard system, serving as the primary customer contact for safety and integration reviews. Additionally, he contributes to process improvement initiatives, writes and maintains payload documentation, and oversees safety and mission assurance processes.
Franklin L. Robinson is a thermal engineer and technologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He leads the Thermal Technology Development and Demonstration (T2D2) Facility, which provides testing in thermal vacuum and planetary simulation chambers capable of replicating the environment of space, the Moon, Mars, Titan, and other planetary destinations. Robinson is also the principal investigator for the Flow Boiling in Microgap Coolers payload, which has flown aboard the Blue Origin New Shepard space vehicle four times. He is the NASA partner for an ongoing University SmallSat Technology Partnership award focused on deployable solid-solid phase change materials and he oversees multiple active Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards. He is the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal and the Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement Award for Engineering.
Aaron D. Olson, PhD is a physicist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory. He had internships at both NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and NASA’s Langley Research Center during his undergraduate education and was part of the 2011 winning NASA Exploration Habitat competition student team that built an expandable module for NASA’S Deep Space Habitat Prototype. Aaron was a Space Technology Research Fellow as a mechanical engineering graduate student and, in 2015, co-founded NovoMoto LLC, a social enterprise that provides clean, renewable, and sustainable electricity to communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Aaron has recently been named a Forward under 40 awardee from the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Alumni Association.
Vincent Vendiola is a Program Manager at Honeybee Robotics. His prior experience includes roles as a Signals Collector/Analyst in both the Army National Guard and in the US Army Active Duty from. He earned a BS degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering.
Nicholas Naclerio is a robotics engineer at Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin Company, and the acting principal investigator on four Flight Opportunities payloads that flew on the 1/6 g NS-29 New Shepard flight. His work at Honeybee focuses on early development of new science instruments and robotic systems for space exploration. He completed his PhD at UC Santa Barbara in mechanical engineering with a focus on the mechanical design of soft robots and mechanisms, and robot interactions with granular media. He was a NASA Space Technology Research Fellow, and with the help of Flight Opportunities and Honeybee his graduate work on a plant-root inspired robotic anchor flew on NS-29.
