To encourage and promote research activity in space flight mechanics and astrodynamics by providing financial support to one or more students presenting papers at each of the annual AAS/AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meetings and Astrodynamics Conferences.
Any student presently enrolled at a U.S. or Canadian college or university (full- or part-time) who is submitting an extended abstract for a technical paper and who will be presenting that paper (if accepted) at the conference.
The student must be a member of the AAS (see http://www.astronautical.org/membership/join or http://www.astronautical.org/ for details). Previous winners of this award are not eligible.
A complete application requires the following documents:
The Breakwell Award Chair will respond via email to acknowledge receipt of your application by ~1 week after the deadline. Only complete applications will be given full consideration during the award selection process.
Faculty recommendation letters: Faculty advisors must submit a letter of recommendation as a pdf via a single email with the subject line "AAS Breakwell Award Recommendation - StudentLastName" and application item #4 attached, where StudentLastName = the last name of the student applicant. In the text of your email, please list the full name of the student and their email address. Your recommendation letter must include, at a minimum, a description of the student's contributions to the current research and confirmation that the student is presently enrolled in a degree program (full- or part-time). You must submit this letter by the abstract deadline.
Note: applicants must also separately submit your extended abstract to the conference abstract submission site; decisions on whether a paper is accepted to the conference are made by the Technical Chairs, independent of this award application process.
Technical merit, based on the paper/abstract and quad chart, and the advisor's letter of recommendation.
The award applications have the same due date as the extended abstracts for the associated conference. Please consult the conference webpage for details.
The cash award will offset expenses for travel, lodging, meals, and conference registration (maximum total amount of up to $2,000 per award). Multiple awards may be given at the discretion of the award and conference committee chairs.
Once the winners are selected, the Space Flight Mechanics Committee Treasurer will issue checks in the full amounts to be awarded. Each check will be issued to the awardee's academic institution, under the conditions that:
A formal presentation of each award (including a certificate) will be made during the awards ceremony at the conference.
Award winners will be required to make their own travel arrangements through their university and to provide receipts for all expenses, including travel, travel insurance, local transportation, lodging, meals, and conference registration. Any unused funds must be returned to the Committee treasurer.
Award chair: Dr. Natasha Bosanac.
Email address: sfmc.breakwell(AT)astronautical.org.
If emailing with a question about the award, please start the subject line with "AAS Breakwell Award".