Space research facilities at Pitt can be found across most of the schools and many of the departments on campus, often organized in the form of a research center or laboratory with a group of faculty members supporting and working with a group of outstanding students. Some of our more prominent facilities for space research and workforce development are highlighted below.
- NSF Space Center (SHREC)
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The NSF Center for Space, High-performance, and Resilient Computing (SHREC) is one of the nation’s foremost academic research groups on space research and workforce development featuring topics in electrical and computer engineering. SHREC was founded in 2006, is headquartered at Pitt with partner sites at Brigham Young University, University of Florida, and Virginia Tech, and features about 30 government, industry, institute, and academic partners, including many of the leading organizations in the US space community. SHREC conducts basic and applied research on a wide range of topics. It leads and supports a broad range of space missions and experiments, the most recent being CASPR, which has been operating on the International Space Station since 2021. For questions, please contact the director, Prof. Alan George.
- Allegheny Observatory
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The Allegheny Observatory, which is part of the Physics and Astronomy Department, is the oldest and most historically consequential space research facility on campus. The observatory has a long rich history in a variety of areas, and it became especially well-known for its astrometric parallax research program, which set the standard for measuring the distances to nearby stars. It currently serves as a laboratory for a variety of student education and research experiences. It has always supported public viewing with the telescopes and with other scientific experiences. For questions, please contact the director, Prof. David Turnshek.
- Astronomy and Cosmology Group
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The Astronomy and Cosmology Group, which is part of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, consists of about a dozen faculty members conducting research and advising graduate students on topics in space science. Their focus areas are cosmology (properties and evolution of the universe, growth of large-scale structure), galaxy evolution (how galaxies grow and change over time), and supernovae (causes of Type-Ia supernovae, modeling the spectrum of emitted light, use as standard candles to measure expansion of the universe).
- Image Visualization and Infrared Spectroscopy Facility
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The Image Visualization and Infrared Spectroscopy (IVIS) Facility, which is part of the Geology and Environmental Science Department, is comprised of three laboratories (Image Lab, Planetary Lab, Spectroscopy Lab) and has been awarded grants totaling more than $10M dollars from NASA, NSF, and NGS in the past decade alone. The labs are designed to function as a state-of-the-art resource for visible through thermal infrared spectroscopy, and image analysis. The IVIS group has extensive experience in processing and interpreting data from Earth orbiting platforms at different scales, and planetary datasets acquired from Venus, the Moon, and Mars. Furthermore, the Spectroscopy lab contains several experiments designed to acquire reflectance and emissivity spectra of geologic materials at a range of temperatures and under different atmospheric compositions to better simulate the conditions found on other worlds. A major focus of the group more recently is developing multispectral infrared cameras for volcano and wildfire science and PI-driven NASA proposals for future orbital missions. For questions, please contact the group leader, Prof. Michael Ramsey.
- Petersen Institute for NanoScience and Engineering
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The Petersen Institute for NanoScience and Engineering (PINSE) and it's Nanoscale Fabrication and Characterization Facility (NFCF) features the world-class facilities, personnel, and expertise necessary to design, fabricate, test, and evaluate new nanoscale devices in electronics and photonics for the harsh and resource-constrained environment of space. For questions, please contact the director, Prof. David Waldeck.
- Pittsburgh Center for Interdisciplinary Bone and Mineral Research
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The Pittsburgh Center for Interdisciplinary Bone and Mineral Research (PCIBMR) develops and facilitates interdisciplinary research, training, and information transfer related to musculoskeletal function in normal and disease states, and during regeneration and repair. Research activities include a broad range of research studies and experiments involving the harsh environment of space. For questions, please contact the co-director, Prof. Giuseppe Intini.
- Pittsburgh Particle Physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology Center
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The Particle Physics Astrophysics and Cosmology Center (PACC) coordinates and enhances local activities in experimental, observational, and theoretical particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. Observational efforts focus upon the use of large survey datasets, augmented with data from large telescopes both on the ground and in space. Theoretical efforts encompasses a wide range of topics, from the physics of the early Universe, to the formation of the Milky Way Galaxy, to Supernovae and Stellar Physics. For questions, please contact the associate director, Prof. David Turnshek.
- Center for Research Computing and Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center
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Our university is one of few in the nation to feature both a university supercomputer center, the Center for Research Computing (CRC), and a national supercomputer center, the world-famous Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center (PSC). Resources and personnel in these high-performance computing centers support a broad range of compute-intensive research activities related to space research, such as training of various AI tools for use in inferencing for autonomous sensor processing on spacecraft, and simulation modeling of complex space systems and activities.
