Ashley K. Carlton

 

Ph.D. Candidate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Space Systems Laboratory
 

 

Lab/Research Group Affiliation

STARLab
Advisor: Prof. Kerri Cahoy

Research

My research interests include the space environment, environment-spacecraft interactions, and instrumentation for radiation detection. My Ph.D. work focuses on how we can use existing spacecraft hardware to quantitatively characterize the hazardous high-energy space radaition environment. GEO communications satellites offer the unique advantage that there are large databases from decades of housekeeping telemetry, which is rarely mined for scientific purposes. My research leverages this large pool of data to examine the effects of space weather on spacecraft by developing algorithms to statistically identify anomalous and abnormal events. In addition, I am developing a method in collaboration with NASA JPL for determining the high-energy spectra of an environment using CCD imagers and Geant4 simulations of high-energy radation interactions with the imager. These techniques, combined with information on avionics upsets, anomalies, etc., are combined to yield a comprehensive study of the environmental effects on spacecraft in order to detect, prevent and predict on-board anomalies and mitigate other risks.  

Other projects include:

  • Project Manager of the Free-space Lasercomm And Radiation Experiment (FLARE): two 3U CubeSats designed to demonstrate free-space optical communications between two CubeSats and to demonstrate a miniature scintillator-based particle-discriminating detector. FLARE is part of the AFRL University Nanosatellite Program (UNP-9).
  • Modeling internal charging risks of amplifier components by simulating worst case GEO environment
  • Mission concept development: satellites as laser guide stars for high resolution ground-based AO observations of GEO and astronomical targets
  • Small satellite system design: modeling coverage and revisit rates for distributed constellations of satellites
  • Research experience in observational astronomy and optics

 

Education

M.S. Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, 2016, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. Physics, 2011, Wake Forest University
B.S. Mathematics, 2011, Wake Forest University

MIT Involvement

Executive Board, Mentorship Chair, Women's Graduate Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Society Memberships

American Geophysical Union, member
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, member

Positions Held Outside of MIT

Intern, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Europa Project, Payload Team, August 2015 - present
Science Operations Team Mission Planner, Chandra X-ray Observatory, 2011-2014
Education and Public Outreach Liaison, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 2011-2014
Teaching Assistant, Wake Forest University, Dept. of Physics, Dept. of Mathematics, 2008-2011
Research Assistant, North Carolina State University, 2010-2011
Research Assistant, University of Arkansas, 2009