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Moriba Jah
Born (1971-03-23) March 23, 1971 (age 53)
San Francisco, CA, U.S.
Nationality American [1]
EducationEmbry–Riddle Aeronautical University (BS)
University of Colorado, Boulder (MS)
University of Colorado at Boulder (PhD)
Known forSpace Situational Awareness, space surveillance and tracking, Space traffic management, Space Sustainability, and by Spacecraft Navigators for the "Moriba solution"
Spouses
  • Maria Renee Washington (m. 1991, div. 1999)
  • Cassaundra Renea Shafer (m. 2002)
Children3
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsUniversity of Texas at Austin
University of Arizona
Air Force Research Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
ThesisMars aerobraking spacecraft state estimation by processing inertial measurement unit data (2005)
Doctoral advisorGeorge Born
Notes
Jah is also known for what NASA JPL Spacecraft Navigators affectionately call the “Moriba solution” which is the spaceraft trajectory estimate with the least amount of data and thus the largest uncertainties. The “Moriba solution” first came into being as a result of Jah’s work on the Mars Exploration Rover mission. It’s mostly a so-called “gag” since, all things being equal, no Navigator desires a trajectory estimate that is the least precise and accurate. However, the importance of the “Moriba solution” is in identifying any “recent” unknown and unmodeled events affecting trajectory estimation and as such an indispensable part of any robust spacecraft navigation strategy.

Moriba Kemessia Jah (born 1971) is an American [2] space scientist and aerospace engineer known for his contributions to orbit determination and prediction especially as related to space situational awareness and space traffic monitoring. He is currently an Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin. Jah previously worked as a spacecraft navigator at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he was a navigator for the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Exploration Rover, and his last mission was the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. He is a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society, the Air Force Research Laboratory[3], the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety and, the Royal Astronomical Society. Jah was also selected into the 10th anniversary class of TED Fellows. He also was selected into the AIAA class of Fellows and Honorary Fellows in the year of the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11. The AIAA "confers the distinction of Fellow upon individuals in recognition of their notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics." [4][5][6][7]

Early life and education

File:Moriba Jah next to a "Peacekeeper".jpg
This is a photo of an enlisted Moriba Jah next to an armored vehicle known as a "Peacekeeper"

Jah was born in San Francisco, California to Elsie Turnier from Port-Au-Prince Haiti and Abraham Jah from Pujehun Sierra Leone. His 23andMe[8] report reveals more insight on his Ancestral Composition. Jah's parents divorced when he was 2 years old. He moved to Venezuela at the age of 6.[9] and his mother Elsie remarried when he was 9 to Jorge Ytalo Marquez Lupi from Zea Mérida Venezuela. As a teenager, Jah was inspired by science and engineering from visits to the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research and Universidad Simon Bolivar. Jah studied at the Cap(f) Pedro Ma. Ochoa Morales National Guard military high school in Venezuela and, after graduating, joined the United States Air Force where he served as a Security Policeman.[9] As a Security Policeman or (SP) Jah was stationed at Malmstrom AFB in Montana where notably he was promoted as Senior Airman Below the zone, was the youngest person to become a Flight Security Controller, and in 1990 was awarded Strategic Air Command SP Airman of the Year. Following his enlistment term, he studied Aerospace Engineering at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott Arizona and earned a bachelor's degree in 1999.[10] He was inspired to become an astrodynamicist by Ron Madler.[11] As an undergraduate student, Jah was awarded a NASA space grant, which allowed him to investigate lunar gravity assist trajectories for Earth orbit plane changes. He spent a year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory working on space mission design.[11] He spent two years at Microcosm, performing the orbital analysis for several satellite constellations.[11] He joined the University of Colorado Boulder for his graduate studies, earning a master's in 2001 and PhD, under the supervision of the late George Born, in 2005.[12] During his PhD he worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a navigation engineer, developing the navigation algorithms and performing orbit determination for several missions, including the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey and Mars Exploration Rover.[13] His doctoral thesis looked at aerobraking spacecraft, using an Unscented Kalman Filter to estimate the spacecraft trajectory and explore this as a possible way to automate aerobraking operations.[12] In 2006, Jah left NASA JPL and became a Senior Scientist at Oceanit Laboratories on Maui, where he used optical data to determine space trajectories.[14][15] He was awarded the NASA Space Act Award "for the creative development of a scientific contribution which has been determined to be of significant value in the advancement of the space and aeronautical activities of NASA, and is entitled: Inertial Measurements for Aero-assisted Navigation (IMAN)" in 2007.[10][16]

Career

This is a photo of Moriba Jah during a panel session

In 2007 Jah was appointed to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).[14] He directed the AFRL Advanced Sciences and Technology Research Institute for Astronautics (ASTRIA) in Maui from 2007 to 2010 and at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico until 2014.[17] At the Kirtland Air Force Base Jah was made mission lead in Space Situational Awareness and advised the satellite guidance and control program.[17]

He left the AFRL in 2016 to become an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona.[10] He served as Director of the University of Arizona’s Space Object Behavioral Sciences initiative. Here he developed techniques to track and understand the > 23,000 human-made objects that are inside Earth's orbit, of which only ≈ 1,500 are operational.[9] In 2017 Jah joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin.[18] He is interested in non-gravitational astrodynamics and using big data in astrodynamics through a Resource Description Framework.[19] He created ASTRIAGraph, the first knowledge graph database for space traffic management.[20][21] The software is designed to monitor space debris and has been compared by Jah to the defence against the dark arts class of Harry Potter.[22] He is building models of space debris that look to quantify the space object population.[23][24]

Jah is concerned because the United States Strategic Command cannot accurately track all satellites, and their current data could be biased, noisy and corrupt.[25] He gave formal congressional testimony to the Federal government of the United States in 2017, discussing a Civil Space Traffic Management system.[26] He believes that we should create a global, accessible, and transparent space traffic management system, which would protect space from debris and a lack of monitoring.[26] To recognise his considerable efforts in giving testimony at congress; Jah was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke International Achievement Award.[27] He delivered a TEDx talk about space traffic management in 2017.[28][29]

He was elected to the International Academy of Astronautics in July 2018.[30] Jah has served as a member of the delegation at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and chairs the NATO SCI-279-TG activity on Space Domain Awareness.[31] He was appointed as Core Faculty to the University of Texas at Austin Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences in 2018 where he directs the Computational Astronautical Sciences and Technologies group (a.k.a. The CAST).[32][33] He has discussed astrodynamics and space policy on NPR, the BBC as well as featuring in the National Geographic.[34][35][36][37][38][39] He was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems and is currently for the Elsevier Advances in Space Research.[40][41]

At The University of Texas at Austin, Moriba Jah is also a Distinguished Scholar of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law.[42]

Jah is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Astronautical Society (AAS), the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), the Air Force Research Laboratory and, the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS).

Personal life

This is a selfie of Moriba Jah in the Glastonbury Tor

Jah is married with three children. He believes that there is one universal truth, “The Source is infinite,” and his motto is "Nihil arcanum est."

Research

Jah's research interests are focused upon the detection, tracking, identification, and characterization of resident space objects. The goal is to quantify, assess, and predict the behavior of all resident space objects, both natural and human-made. Jah's mantra for his program and students is, "if you want to know it, you must measure it; if you want to understand it, you must predict it!"

The success Jah has had in his research stems from his drive and ability to thrive at the intersection of multiple disciplines, taking methods enjoyed by other subjects and applying them to problems in astronautics. In particular, he draws from the Information Theory, Data Science, and Biological Systems areas and seeks shared fundamental problems they solve. Jah states that any given data set contains information about something if and only if there are differences between what is in the data and what is desired to be known or rates of change between these. He views a space object trajectory as a signal comprised of various perturbative root causes, all convolved. Jah's scientific curiosity is to be able to deconvolve the dynamic signal and know each root cause contributing to it and to what extent it does, as well as why.

More recently, Jah has expanded his research into so-called soft sciences, recognizing that there is a subset of resident space objects controlled by humans not just physics. Thus, he has begun to explore behavioral science, social science, and anthropology and how to make these computational. In other words, Jah can create a Computational Astrodynamicist (i.e. an "artificially intelligent" astrodynamicist residing in a machine) but creating a Computational Behavioral Scientist, Computational Political Scientist, etc. is quite a feat to achieve, but necessary if we are to truly be able to understand the behavior of all objects in space.

Jah's published works span the areas of space situational awareness, space traffic management, spacecraft navigation, space surveillance and tracking, multi-source information fusion, and more recently the intersection with space security and safety[43].

Awards and recognition

Year Award
1990 Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon
1990 Senior Airman “Below the zone”
1990 Strategic Air Command, SP Airman of the Year
1991 Air Force Outstanding Unit Award
1991 National Defense Service Medal
1991 Air Force Good Conduct Medal
1992 Honorable Discharge
2001 NASA Group Achievement Award and Aviation Week & Space Technology Laurel Award "for the superb navigation of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft to Mars"
2005 NASA Group Achievement Award for the flawless navigation of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to Mars
2007 NASA Space Act Award “for the creative development of a scientific contribution which has been determined to be of significant value in the advancement of the space and aeronautical activities of NASA, and is entitled: Inertial Measurements for Aeroassisted Navigation (IMAN)”
2009 NASA Group Achievement Award for the Nanosail-D mission support
2009 AFRL R. Earl Good Award “for significant team contributions to the AFRL mission or image outside of AFRL and for accomplishments that have had a significant impact and enhanced the creditability of AFRL.”
2010 Hayabusa Certificate of Appreciation: “in recognition of your significant contributions to the completion of Hayabusa’s round trip space mission in 2010”
2010 Elected to Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
2011 Elected to Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
2013 Air Force Research Laboratory International Award
2013 Air Force Research Laboratory, Space Vehicles Directorate Technology Transfer/Transition Achievement Award
2014 Elected to Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society
2014 Elected to Fellow of the American Astronautical Society
2015 Elected to Fellow of the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety
2015 Elected to Fellow of the Air Force Research Laboratory
2016 University of Colorado Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award (DEAA)
2016 AIAA Momentum Member Spotlight – June 2016 (http://www.aiaa.org/memberspotlightJune2016/)
2018 Elected as Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics
2019 Selected as TED Fellow[44]
2019 Conferred as Fellow by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics "For thought leadership and innovative technical contributions in the fields of space situational awareness, space traffic management, and astrodynamics.”[45]

References

  1. ^ "Moriba Jah's 23andMe Ancestry report".
  2. ^ "Moriba Jah's 23andMe Ancestry report".
  3. ^ https://www.wpafb.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/818655/afrl-inducts-2015-fellows/
  4. ^ "Meet the 2019 TED Fellows and Senior Fellows". TED Blog. 2019-01-23. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  5. ^ "Moriba Jah (‘99),". alumni.erau.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  6. ^ https://aas.org/posts/news/2019/01/2019-class-ted-fellows-includes-three-aas-members
  7. ^ "AIAA Announces Its Class of 2019 Fellows and Honorary Fellows". aiaa.org. 2019-02-04. Retrieved 2019-02-04.
  8. ^ "Moriba Jah's 23andMe Ancestry report".
  9. ^ a b c "Space Junk(ie)". Lift Magazine. 2018-03-30. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  10. ^ a b c "Jah, Moriba | CODER". www.coder.umd.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  11. ^ a b c "Moriba Jah | The University of Texas at Austin - Academia.edu". utexas.academia.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  12. ^ a b Jah, Moriba Kemessia (2005). "Mars aerobraking spacecraft state estimation by processing inertial measurement unit data". Ph.D. Thesis.
  13. ^ mars.nasa.gov. "Moriba Jah". NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  14. ^ a b "Momentum Member Spotlight â€" June 2016 : The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics". www.aiaa.org. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  15. ^ Jah, M.; Madler, R. (2007). "Satellite Characterization: Angles and Light Curve Data Fusion for Spacecraft State and Parameter Estimation": E49. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  16. ^ Posted by Daniel Leuck on August 6, 2009 at 10:30am; Blog, View. "Featured Techie: Astrodynamicist Moriba Jah". www.techhui.com. Retrieved 2019-01-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ a b "Dr. Moriba K. Jah | The Space Show". thespaceshow.com. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  18. ^ "Moriba K. Jah". www.ae.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  19. ^ "ASTRIAGraph". sites.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  20. ^ "ASTRIAGraph, the very first RDF-based Knowledge Graph for Space Traffic monitoring, is now live as a demo!". sites.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  21. ^ "ASTRIAGraph". astria.tacc.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-25. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  22. ^ "Astriagraph software program combats space junk - The Daily Texan". www.dailytexanonline.com. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  23. ^ Deoras, Srishti (2017-05-04). "Interview with Moriba K. Jah, an Astrodynamicist & Space Expert". Analytics India Magazine. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  24. ^ Evans, Steve (2018-11-09). "Watch out, there's a lot of space junk about". Canberra Times. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  25. ^ "Space Surveillance and Tracking: Challenges for Unique Space Object Identification and Space Traffic Management". aoe.vt.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  26. ^ a b "Reopening the American Frontier: Promoting Partnerships Between Commercial Space and the U.S. Government to Advance Exploration and Settlement" (PDF). NASA. Retrieved 2019-01-26. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  27. ^ Society, British Interplanetary (2018-10-07). "The 2018 Sir Arthur Clarke Awards Finalists Announced". The British Interplanetary Society. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  28. ^ TEDx Talks, Space Traffic and the Tragedy of the Commons | Moriba Jah | TEDxDayton, retrieved 2019-01-25
  29. ^ "Moriba Jah". TEDxDayton. 2016-05-16. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  30. ^ "Moriba Jah Elected to International Academy of Astronautics". sites.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  31. ^ "Moriba Jah". The Strauss Center. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  32. ^ "Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences | University of Texas at Austin". ICES. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  33. ^ "Computational Astronautical Sciences and Technologies". www.ices.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  34. ^ "Moriba Jah". Source of the Week. 2018-08-15. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  35. ^ "BBC World Service - Science in Action, Can Science Save the Northern White Rhino?". BBC. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  36. ^ Scott, Elfy. "Scientists Think They Might Be Able To Solve The Space Junk Problem – By Shooting Lasers At It". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  37. ^ "Get Ready for Artificial Meteor Showers". National Geographic News. 2016-06-14. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  38. ^ Stockton, Nick (2017-07-17). "Ted Cruz Asks Space Capitalists How to Make Orbit Great Again". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  39. ^ "Moriba Jah, 1999 Embry-Riddle Space Grant Intern, featured on NPR Source of the Week! | Arizona Space Grant Consortium". spacegrant.arizona.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  40. ^ "Moriba K. Jah | Aerospace & Electronic Systems Society". ieee-aess.org. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  41. ^ "Professor Moriba Jah I IWLR2018". www.iwlr2018.serc.org.au. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  42. ^ "Distinguished Scholar". strausscenter.org. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  43. ^ "Moriba Jah, Ph.D. Publications".
  44. ^ "Meet this year's 20 inspiring, creative TED Fellows". fastcompany.com. 2019-01-23. Retrieved 2019-02-07.
  45. ^ "AIAA Announces Its Class of 2019 Fellows and Honorary Fellows". aiaa.org. 2019-02-04. Retrieved 2019-02-04.
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