As the modern space race continues, LSU physicist Jeffrey Chancellor has founded a company aiming to develop technologies to be used by both commercial and government space missions.
The company, Atlantis Industries, holds three patents designed to make space travel safer and easier, according to Chancellor. Atlantis was founded in 2021.
One of the technologies, Phalanx AI, uses artificial intelligence to design optimized radiation shielding for spacecraft based on mission specifications.
“We design the shielding based on the mission and the orbit,” Chancellor said. “So instead of just having a generic shielding design for a satellite which is done typically, we take into account what the radiation environment is going to be like for that particular mission and what are the goals, what are the minimum requirements they need for it to be operating efficiently and we design it around that.”
Offering the blueprints up to companies who wish to use them, Atlantis currently provides two more technologies in addition to Phalanx AI: ReForge and Tiger Eye.
ReForge recreates space radiation environments with a heavy ion accelerator. It’s used to test hardware for satellites and other spacecraft to confirm that it can survive the radiation.
Seeking to gather data about the lunar surface’s radiation, Tiger Eye is a radiation detector that will be delivered to the south pole of the Moon. It will fly on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and will be attached to a lander developed by another company, Intuitive Machines. Once on the Moon, it will operate perpetually until it stops working.
Tiger Eye was originally going to fly on NASA’s IM-1 mission but it was deprioritized, according to Chancellor. Instead, it will now fly on the IM-2 mission. Chancellor discussed the mission has been delayed, but it will launch either late this year or early next year.
Another Tiger Eye detector will be placed in orbit around the moon and will be launched by Intuitive Machines as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services. The second Tiger Eye will provide measurements of radiation in the space around the moon.
Chancellor revealed it should launch around the beginning of 2023.
The mission will be the first time NASA returns to the Moon in 50 years with LSU slated to be the first university to put technology on the moon.
The technology is being developed by students in LSU’s SpaRTAN lab under Chancellor’s guidance. The lab, Space Radiation and Applied Nuclear Physics, focuses on studying the impacts of space radiation on human crews and space vehicle hardware as stated on their website.
The original commercial partner for the mission was an engineering firm called Geocent, who spent around $300,000 on the mission. They have since focused their efforts elsewhere, so now Atlantis is the commercial partner.
Chancellor hopes the Tiger Eye detector will be used beyond this lunar mission, with plans to continue expanding Atlantis into other areas of the space travel industry.
“I’ve been working with or for NASA for 25 years now in vehicle design and fundamental research and shielding. It’ll always be related to that industry,” Chancellor said. “So, working with the Space Force or [the] Department of Defense or all of these commercial companies that are starting to grow up; SpaceX, Amazon have been calling a lot lately to talk about their satellites and stuff like that.”
Chancellor is careful to keep Atlantis separate from his work at LSU’s College of Science. The company’s day-to-day operations are run by CEO Brad Morrison.
Vice President of LSU’s Office of Research and Economic Development Samuel Bentley said the university, as a space grant university, places a high degree of importance into research related to space technology like the ones Chancellor and his students are developing.
“The reason land grant universities were established was to improve the condition of the people of the home state,” Bentley said. “Very specific, very focused on service to the people of the state. So you can imagine that sea grant and space grant kind of have the same intent, to support the industries and the future development of human engagement in space and human engagement in the oceans.”
LSU is involved with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, Bentley said, as well as producing new metals, alloys and ways of manufacturing items for usage in space vehicles in the College of Engineering.
Another LSU professor, biologist Maheshi Dassanayake, is studying how plants have evolved to grow in extreme environments, research which will aid NASA in growing plants on Mars.
“You’ve got the work on Jeff Chancellor’s radiation shielding which is super cool and we’re very excited about the prospect of having one of the first university owned and operated sensors or experiments on the moon,” Bentley said.
Parts of the Artemis rocket, the spacecraft NASA is testing which will eventually take humans back to the Moon, were manufactured using LSU-owned large machinery at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where NASA assembles their large rockets, according to Bentley.
The machines were developed by the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing, a partnership between LSU, NASA, the University of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana to develop technologies for manufacturing related to NASA’s space program and other industries.
In addition to NASA, Bentley discussed how the state government is also interested in establishing a space campus to support research related to space technologies like Chancellor’s, outside of the Michoud Assembly Facility.
“I think there’s a rosy future for space technology, space related research at LSU, in the state of Louisiana for the foreseeable future,” Bentley said.
