UCF has a strong connection to space. At Spectrum Stadium, Physics Professor Joshua Colwell was honored at the UCF Homecoming football game. He has ongoing research with commercial space companies and NASA, including the historic Cassini mission to explore Saturn. Assistant Professor Adrienne Dove, also joined him on the field. She was honored with NASA’s Susan […]
by Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala A team of UCF researchers and their students is building a small satellite that will conduct experiments as it orbits the Earth next year. The NASA-funded project code-named Q-PACE will help Physics Professor Joshua Colwell and his team better understand how planets form. The experiments involve marble-sized particles and what happens […]
RIA Awardees The University of Central Florida Research Incentive Awards (RIA) program supports outstanding research, scholarly and creative activity that advances the body of knowledge in a particular field, including interdisciplinary research and collaborations. The below faculty members were recognized for their contributions to UCF’s key goal of achieving international prominence in research and creative activities. […]
University of Central Florida’s Founders’ Day Honors Convocation recognizes faculty, staff members and students for outstanding teaching, research, professional service and years of dedication to the university. Awards included the Pegasus Professor Award presented to College of Sciences Associate Dean Jana Jasinski, Ph.D., the UCF Reach for the Stars Award presented to UCF Biology Assistant […]
Story by UCF Today Many feared the United States’ role in space exploration was over after an accident took the lives of a second space shuttle crew in 2003. After another long grounding of the shuttle fleet, flights restarted briefly but by 2011 the program was retired and no manned missions were on the horizon. […]
In the latest issue of UCF’s magazine, Pegasus, there are many stories focusing on UCF’s involvement with space. Many of these stories feature researchers from the UCF Physics Department. In the page One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for UCF, a timeline traces UCF’s history with space. From Citronaut, UCF’s first mascot in […]
ORLANDO, April 2, 2016 — Yes! Followed by a high five. That was UCF Physics Professor Dr. Joshua Colwell’s reaction as he watched the successful launch into suborbital space of his experiment aboard Blue Origin’s (https://www.blueorigin.com/) New Shepard space vehicle on Saturday, April 2. “We have been waiting for this day for a long time,” […]
By Scott Powers – Writer for Orlando Sentinel Tiny particles of space dust: How do they stick together? How might astronauts not stir them up? Two UCF scientists are asking, and they’ve gotten NASA’s attention. UCF physics Professor and Assistant Director at the Florida Space Institute Joshua Colwell, Ph.D., and UCF physics post-doctoral Research Scientist Julie Brisset, Ph.D., have won […]
Several small-scale experiments aboard NASA’s vomit comet have led to a NASA grant to study early planet formation aboard a satellite in low-Earth orbit for a year or more. University of Central Florida physics professor Dr. Joshua Colwell this month landed a grant to place a thermos-sized experiment aboard a satellite as part of NASA’s […]
Two payloads on last Saturday morning’s SpaceX-4 launch at Cape Kennedy had UCF ties. The launch will deliver cargo and crew supplies to the International Space Station. Several experiments on the flight will include: Physics professor Joshua Colwell’s research to explore low-energy collisions of dust particles to better understand the conditions that lead to the formation of […]
Beginning on Monday, July 21, UCF students boarded a specially equipped plane that NASA uses to train astronauts and run microgravity experiments. The plane is nicknamed the vomit comet because first-time flyers tend to vomit as the plane hits zero gravity. “My team and I have worked tirelessly for the past year to get our project up […]
A UCF experiment and a 3-D printer for space developed by a UCF graduate will fly on the first NASA-funded commercial research flight on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. NASA and Virgin Galactic announced Tuesday that 12 university experiments, two industry-developed technologies and two NASA projects were selected for the mission. Dr. Joshua Colwell, a UCF physics […]
Flying at zero gravity is usually something reserved for astronauts in training or very wealthy people with cash to burn, but six UCF students will get the chance to do so in June, courtesy of NASA. NASA selected UCF’s team to run an experiment aboard a parabolic flight as part of its Undergraduate Student Instrumentation […]
This story is reposted from UCF Today. Joshua Colwell is a UCF physics professor trying to unravel the mystery of how Earth and the solar system were formed. His expertise has landed him roles in several NASA-funded projects, including the Cassini mission, which is exploring Saturn’s rings. Becoming a rocket scientist was a natural career […]
Congratulations, Dr. Josh Colwell, Professor Department of Physics Planetary Sciences Group, on your UCF Mentor of the Year Award. Dr. Colwell got his Ph.D. from the Department of Astrophysical, Planetary, and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Colorado in 1989 and remained in Colorado as a Research Associate at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics until […]
Teams working on a wide range of innovative research and technology development, including work that may lead to new techniques for keeping alien dust from clogging up sensitive space instruments and work on new satellite tracking systems to help track endangered sea turtles recently got a financial boost courtesy of the Florida Space Institute. In […]
A University of Central Florida experiment that could help explain how planets formed in our solar system has won a free ride to the International Space Station in 2013. Physics professor Joshua Colwell’s experiment is one of eight winners of the Space Florida International Space Station Research Competition sponsored by Space Florida and NanoRacks. Space Florida […]
While the space-related buzz these days revolves around the more than 7,000 shuttle-related jobs eliminated in Central Florida, Britt and his colleague Dr. Joshua Colwell have reason to be optimistic. Colwell, a professor in the Department of Physics’ Planetary Sciences group and interim assistant director of the Florida Space Institute, says, “Overall, the space program […]
About 100 faculty members have been recognized by UCF for their outstanding accomplishments in research and teaching. Professors were selected for Trustee Chair Professorships based on their extraordinary record of accomplishment in teaching, research and service. Recipients were Peter Hancock from the College of Sciences, Mubarak A. Shah from the College of Engineering and Computer Science […]