UAPIOC Success at AIAA AVIATION and ASCEND Forums
Patrick Donovan
The UAPIOC was excited to prominently participate in this year’s AIAA AVIATION and ASCEND Forum and Exposition jointly held at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas. From July 29th through August 2nd, over 2900 aerospace engineers and professionals came together from across the globe to foster dialogue and knowledge exchange among thought leaders, researchers, and industry experts.
The AVIATION Forum represents the only aviation event that covers the entire integrated spectrum of aviation business, research, development, and technology. While the ASCEND Forum serves to connect the civil, commercial, and national security space sectors, along with adjacent industries, to embrace the opportunities and address the challenges that come with increased activity in space.
AVIATION Forum
The UAPIOC hosted a successful technical paper session chaired by Patrick Donovan (Chair) and Nick Orenstein (co-Chair) titled, “Advancing the Scientific Study of UAP to Improve Aviation Safety”. To set the stage, Patrick began the session with a statement about the importance of scientifically studying UAP. Three scientific papers were then presented by Rajiv Thummala, a PhD student at Cornell University’s aerospace engineering school; Robert Powell, co-founder and executive board member of the Scientific Coalition of UAP Studies; and Dr. Shawn Pruchnicki, Ohio State University Professor for both Aviation and Integrated Systems Engineering.
ASCEND Forum
For this part of the event, the UAPIOC hosted a unique panel discussion, titled “Detection, Characterization, and Evaluation of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)”. The panel was moderated and led by the Chair of the UAPIOC and Director of Americans for Safe Aerospace, Ryan Graves. Panelists included:
Dr. Michael Lembeck: co-Chair of the UAPIOC and Clinical associate Professor at the University of Illinois Ubana-Champaign’s Laboratory for Advanced Space Systems.
Robert Powell: Co-Founder and Executive Board member of the Scientific Coalition of UAP Studies
Lou Maack: Lockheed Martin Fellow and AIAA Space Systems Technical Committee
The hour-long, wide-ranging panel was also well attended with many questions being asked. Many members of the audience stayed behind afterwards to continue the discussions.
Aerospace Traffic Management IOC
The UAPIOC was also invited to attend and present at the ATMIOC team meeting that was held at the ASCEND Forum on August 1st. Ryan Graves, Michael Lembeck, Ed Stanton, Rex Groves, and Patrick Donovan all attended to represent the UAPIOC. Our Chair of the Hardware Factors Sub-Committee, Rex Groves, was given time to present a sample of some of the work our team is doing related to radar evolutions that could improve detection of UAP in the future. The UAPIOC was well received by ATMIOC and we committed to working together more in the future.
All in all, we think our AIAA Forum participation was a great success. Our participation, the good attendance, and the serious questions posed to us by attendees is proof that the stigma related to the subject of UAP is declining. The more we can attract aerospace engineers and professionals to take an interest in the topic, the better off we will be in addressing the aviation safety and national security issues related to having unknown objects in our air space.
