2023 AIAA Wright Brothers Lectureship in Aeronautics Awarded to Larry A. Young, NASA Ames Research Center Written 15 May 2023

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Lecture will be Delivered on 12 June, During 2023 AIAA AVIATION Forum

May 15, 2023 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is pleased to award the 2023 AIAA Wright Brothers Lectureship in Aeronautics toLarry A. Young, NASA Ames Research Center. Young will deliver his lecture, “NASA Aeronautics Contributions to the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter,” Monday, 12 June, 1730 hrs PT, during the 2023 AIAA AVIATION Forum, San Diego. Forum registration is open. Journalists can request a Press Pass here.

The AIAA Wright Brothers Lectureship in Aeronautics commemorates the accomplishment of the Wright Brothers in creating the first practical airplane and also recognizes the success of their approach to problem-solving – beginning with study of the literature, and including innovative thinking, constructive debate, systematic testing, and teamwork. In particular, the Wright Brothers Lectureship is awarded for the recent accomplishment of a significant “First in Aeronautical Engineering.” The lecture will highlight the details of the accomplishment and the approaches to meeting both the technical and programmatic challenges involved.

Young’s lecture, “NASA Aeronautics Contributions to the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter,” will highlight NASA studies on how to enable planetary flight with aerial vehicles, especially Mars airplanes. In the late 1990s, NASA began studying Mars rotorcraft and other vertical lift planetary aerial vehicles. The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was developed by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory with substantial contributions from NASA Ames Research Center and NASA Langley Research Center. This work included detailed analysis in areas such as performance predictions, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis, control law validation, and experimental analysis.

Young received his bachelors and masters degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Washington State University. He has conducted rotorcraft and vertical flight research in the Ames Aeromechanics Office for over 40 years. Young performs research on advanced aerial vehicle and aerospace system conceptual design. Among his current and past projects are studies into fundamental vortical flow physics, planetary aerial vehicles, rotary-wing vehicles for disaster relief and emergency response missions, “rotorcraft as robots,” and advanced tilt-rotor aircraft design. Young was an early researcher into Mars rotorcraft and other vertical takeoff vehicles for planetary exploration. Young is an AIAA Associate Fellow and a Vertical Flight Society (VFS) Technical Fellow.

For more information about the AIAA Honors and Awards program, contact Patricia A. Carr at patriciac@aiaa.org.

Media Contact: Rebecca Gray, APR, RebeccaG@aiaa.org, 804.397.5270 (cell)

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The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit www.aiaa.org, and follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.