The 4th IAA Planetary Defense Conference (PDC) was held April 13 – 17, 2015, in Frascati, Italy. The theme was “Assessing Impact Risk & Managing Response.” Over 300 people from all over the world traveled to Frascati, a town in the province of Rome in central Italy. Representing Iowa State University and the Department of Aerospace Engineering were Ben Zimmerman, George Vardaxis and Joshua Lyzhoft, PhD students in aerospace engineering, and professor Bong Wie.
During the banquet on the penultimate day of the conference, the winners of the best student papers were announced and awarded prizes. The aim of the student competition is to help promote excellent scientific work and informed political debates by enhancing research and awarding students for their work in the area of planetary defense.
Ben Zimmerman received an award for second place with 300 Euros in prize money for his paper “GPU-ACCELERATED COMPUTATIONAL TOOL DEVELOPMENT FOR STUDYING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NUCLEAR SUBSURFACE EXPLOSIONS. Joshua Lyzhoft was awarded first place and a cash prize of 500 Euros for his paper “A NEW TERMINAL GUIDANCE SENSOR SYSTEM FOR ASTEROID INTERCEPT OR RENDEZVOUS MISSIONS.”
For images of the conference and the award recipients, please visit the EADP’s website.