research overview
- Dr. McMahon's research is focused on the dynamics, guidance, navigation and control of aerospace vehicles, including space robotics, with a focus on increasing autonomy for space exploration. He also focuses on the dynamics of asteroids, particularly binary asteroids under the influence of non-gravitational forces. He is leading the Navigation team for the UAE Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA). He is a Participating Scientist for NASA Double-Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission. He was the deputy lead of the Radio Science team for the NASA OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission and was on the science team for JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission. He was also the Deputy-PI for NASA's planned Janus mission to visit two binary asteroid systems. He is a member of the investigation team for ESA's Hera mission to return to the Didymos binary asteroid impacted by DART. He combines his expertise in aerospace engineering and asteroid science to develop new methods for interacting with, and potentially mining, asteroids and other small bodies in the solar system.
