AFRL researchers receive high honors

  • Published
  • By Jeanne Dailey
  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Two Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate researchers were recently recognized for receiving the 69th Annual Arthur S. Flemming Air Force-level award. Dr. Jeremy Banik was recognized in the Applied Science and Engineering category for his outstanding contributions in the area of deployable spacecraft structures, and Dr. Benjamin Prince was recognized in the Basic Science category for his research in next-generation electric propulsion systems.

 

The Flemming award honors outstanding federal employees who have made significant and extraordinary contributions to the federal government.

“It is an extremely rare occurrence for two of the three Air Force winners of the prestigious Arthur S. Flemming award to come from the same organization, AFRL, much less from the same directorate within AFRL,” said Dr. Thomas Cooley, the Space Vehicles Directorate’s chief scientist. “Reaching this level in the nomination process, is a testament to these outstanding researchers and the technical work being performed in Space Vehicles.” 

Banik who has been with AFRL since 2006 grew up in a farming community in Sioux Falls, S.D. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in mechanical engineering and his doctorate in engineering from the University of New Mexico.

Banik explained that the technology he and his team developed is high strain composite mechanisms, which represent the first major advancement in deployable spacecraft structures in 40 years.

“Traditional solar arrays and antennas on satellites have been highly engineered mechanical devices that are motor driven and require special features such as synchronization mechanisms,” Banik said. “As a result, these mechanisms are complex, expensive, and heavy. We have developed thin, composite materials that are passively deployed using strain energy that allows space structures to be kept in a stowed configuration. This has dramatically reduced complexity, cost and size of the deployable materials.”

In 2017, his technology called the Roll Out Solar Array was successfully tested from the International Space Station—a first on-orbit deployment of a high strain composite stowed tube. More than a dozen companies have asked for Banik’s help to adopt high strain composites into their satellite deployable structures, and he and has his team have received six U. S. patents on their technology.

“Proving their operational value, high strain composites are also being used by Air Force Special Operations men and women in some really neat ways,” Banik said. “Those operators ruck a massive amount of equipment and we were able to lighten and fold some of it for them.”

Prince is also from the Midwest. He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Illinois College and his Ph.D. from Iowa State University. Prince joined the AFRL as a government civilian in 2011 after a tour as a National Research Council post-docorate in-house contractor working for the laboratory.

“The majority of my efforts here at AFRL are related to the sphere of research we call basic science,” Prince said. “I am a physical chemist, which means unlike some of my peers who make cool new widgets or an actual physical object, I am interested in understanding (and hopefully modelling!) why things work the way they work and how we might make the technology better.”

Basic science research is critical to research and development Prince explains. “Basic scientists do two important things for the Air Force:  we fill knowledge and data gaps for established programs, and we evaluate new technologies or new methodologies from recent discoveries that might be harnessed in a way as to get new capabilities to the warfighter in the near future” he said.

Both Banik and Prince received this high honor with humility.

“Like many scientists I’m an introvert,” Prince said. “I’m also one of those people who glow a fantastic shade of red when attention is drawn to them. To go super-nerdy, I'd describe my quantum state as a superposition of excited to be a representative of the great basic science work at AFRL, humbled by the response from so many of the AFRL family, and amazingly appreciative of the work that goes on here and the awesome people who accomplish it.”

“It is such an honor to represent the U.S. Air Force in this way,” Banik said. “Even though my name is being recognized for these amazing accomplishments, they are not my own, they belong to a fantastic team of engineers, scientists, and support staff back at AFRL and also at dozens of companies and universities across the country. No one person could have accomplished these achievements on his own.  It requires the diverse skills and collective wisdom of a team, a fantastic team.”

Prince and Banik give credit to many mentors along the way to their success. Both have a family and interests outside of their work at AFRL. Prince plays the bass trombone and enjoys classical music and opera as well as hiking trails in New Mexico with his wife. Banik participates in high intensity physical training and enjoys spending time with his wife and four children.