Directory profile for Dr. Rohan Sood

Dr. Rohan Sood’s primary research investigates innovative spacecraft trajectory design leveraging natural dynamics to deliver cost-effective solutions. In 2018, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center selected Dr. Sood’s Technical Excellence proposal on Advanced Trajectory Design. In 2019, he was awarded the Astrodynamics in Support of Icy World Missions grant by NASA HQ. Sood is also the recipient of the Center innovation Funds from NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory for two consecutive years (2019-2021). In 2021, he was actively involved with NASA’s Solar Cruiser trajectory design in collaboration with MSFC’s Mission Design and Navigation Team. More recently, he is investigating trajectories to enable Solar Polar Imager mission to explore the poles of the Sun, something that has never been done before. Dr. Sood has also been awarded NASA SBIR (2019-2020) and DOD – Air Force STTR (2022-2023). Some of the current projects or research topics are:

• Innovative solar sail solutions to NASA missions (NEA Scout and Solar Cruiser)
• Applying game theory for spacecraft rendezvous and protection
• Multi-spacecraft multi-target trajectories to asteroids and icy moons
• Missed thrust resilient spacecraft on long duration missions
• Artificial intelligence based spacecraft trajectory design

Dr. Sood’s scientific discoveries of lunar lava tubes and buried craters has received widespread coverage by the BBC and National Geographic that led to collaboration with the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA. Dr. Sood’s lab, the Astrodynamics and Space Research Laboratory, also employs a variety of hardware and software to enhance visualization (3-D and VR, and AR) of spacecraft trajectories, mission architecture, and to improve student classroom experience.