Launches A New Generation Of Innovators

During the past century, MIT’s aerospace innovators have helped win the race to the moon, shaped the nation’s aviation industry, perfected technologies that keep the nation secure, and begun probing the deepest reaches of the universe. These days, thanks to advances in technology and manufacturing, the proliferation of aviation as a mode of passenger and cargo transport, and reductions in governments’ appetites for large-scale space programs like Apollo, AeroAstro innovators can start their own companies, create their own aviation designs, build their own rockets, and make an impact outside of government facilities and large aerospace firms.

Alumna Natalya Brikner PhD ’15, CEO of a satellite technology venture, along with her business partner Louis Perna ’09, SM ’14, began Accion Systems Inc. in 2012. Their company is based on a technology they developed with AeroAstro associate professor Paulo Lozano in the Space Propulsion Laboratory — a compact, inexpensive, electric-based satellite thruster system. These tiny rocket motors will enable inexpensive microsatellites to accomplish work previously possible only with large, expensive satellites. As a result of this new technology, sophisticated space missions once exclusively the province of the government and large aerospace firms are now within reach of entrepreneurs like Brikner.

And she is not alone. According to a Dec. 9 report outlining MIT’s global entrepreneurial impact, alumni from the Institute are estimated to have launched more than 30,000 active companies that employ roughly 4.6 million people. These activities have generated nearly $2 trillion in annual revenues. Not surprisingly, among those alumni are many, like Obropta and Brikner, who come from AeroAstro.

Many AeroAstro students, while inspired by moonshot projects like traveling to Mars, and aware of the enormous value of traditional aerospace careers, are looking for more immediate ways to get “hands on” experiences. “They want to try things, fail, and learn, and it’s hard to do when projects have such long time horizons,” says doctoral candidate Edward Obropta ’13, SM ’15. “They see entrepreneurship as a way to test ideas faster.”

(Source: MIT News)

FMI: http://aeroastro.mit.edu/