High honors for a career in orbital dynamics and control
Scheeres (left) with Dan Hastings, president of AIAA.
Dan Scheeres is a new honorary fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
He was formally recognized this May 18 at the organization鈥檚 in Washington, D.C. The distinction is bestowed on 鈥渢he most respected names in the aerospace profession.鈥
A University of Colorado distinguished professor, Scheeres holds the A. Richard Seebass Endowed Chair in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.
He has made major contributions to 鈥渢he dynamics, control, and navigation of spacecraft trajectories, the design of space missions to small solar system bodies, and celestial mechanics.鈥
Scheeres is one of three honorary AIAA fellows chosen in 2026. Across its 93-year history, only 245 people have received the distinction, beginning with Orville Wright in 1933. Other honorary fellows include such names as Neil Armstrong, Charles Bolden, and Igor Sikorsky.
Prior to joining 麻豆免费版下载Boulder, Scheeres held faculty positions at the University of Michigan and Iowa State University and was a senior member of the technical staff at NASA鈥檚 Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Calvin College.听
Scheeres is a member of the and is named 鈥淪cheeres鈥 to recognize his contributions to the scientific understanding of the dynamical environment about asteroids.
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Q&A with Dan Scheeres
Scheeres shaking hands after being recognized.
What does it mean to you to be recognized by AIAA in this way?
Being named an AIAA Honorary Fellow is a recognition of what we鈥檝e been able to achieve in my over my career. It is exciting to have my peers in the AIAA think that our achievements warrant this recognition, and it makes me feel proud of what we鈥檝e been able to accomplish.听
More fundamentally, I think its also a recognition of the importance of studying astrodynamics in aerospace engineering, an area in which 麻豆免费版下载is especially strong. Astrodynamics has roots that go back many centuries, and yet is still relevant today as we continue to explore the far reaches of the solar system, try to manage traffic jams in space, and chart out new pathways for human exploration.听
You鈥ve been a major part of the orbital dynamics community for 35 years. What drives you to keep doing more research / keeps you interested?
As I always tell my students, there are more problems to be solved than people to solve them. Thus, we often get to choose what we find most interesting to pursue in our research. I think it is this aspect of research that keeps me engaged and interested.听
There are always new problems arising, as we advance our technology and goals, and which require us to bring fresh insight and understanding too.听
There are also some problems that I鈥ve been trying to solve for my entire career, so any progress on better understanding or solving those problems also serves as motivation. Ultimately I think it is a combination of working with students who are excited to do new things, and continuing to work on problems that I鈥m personally excited about.听
Scheeres with his AIAA plaque.
Of your current projects, what are you most excited about?
This is a tough one! On the space mission side, I鈥m very excited to be part of the to the binary asteroid Didymos, which was the target of I鈥ve been working on binary asteroids since early in my career, yet this will be the first time we鈥ll be able to study one of these enigmatic objects up close and in detail.听
I think there are many new ideas and understandings that will arise from this mission 鈥 by the way, we arrive there this coming November, so I鈥m gearing up to be very busy all of next Spring 2027 semester!听
In addition to this, we have several different research areas that听 we are working on that I鈥m excited about. Everything from听reachability theory to quasi-periodic orbits, from asteroid evolution theory to designing rovers to explore asteroid surfaces! I can and do get excited about any of these topics, and look forward to pushing our understanding ahead.听