ASTER Labs, Inc. is a small aerospace research company incorporated in 2004 within Minnesota, USA. We currently operate in Shoreview, MN, after previously operating for some time in College Park, MD.

The name ASTER Labs is an acronym that stands for Advanced Space and Technology Research Laboratories.

The company primarily focuses upon research and engineering services for advanced topics in the aerospace industry, with a fundamental focus on space. Specifically, this includes spacecraft systems development and operation applications, as well as technology that can be applied to future aerospace vehicle enhancements. While we are always envisioning and considering new product development or sales, much of our conceptual research is directed at producing future viable systems. Our company is under contract with many on-going research programs for advanced spacecraft navigation, including deep space navigation.

ASTER Labs, Inc. also pursues research for terrestrial applications that can benefit future space exploration initiatives. These include land vehicles, aircraft, and sea-going vessel systems research. To support many of these system’s development, our company also investigates passive energy harvesting and generation systems, including solar and wind technologies, for self-sufficient operations. Other active or past areas of research within the company include indoor personal navigation; large inflatable structures, such as high-altitude long-durations balloons for science, observation, and communication purposes; surface morphing of high-speed aerospace vehicles; and micro-air vehicle navigation and control. Another important active research area is advanced medical sensor development to assist with various therapies and assist low-vision and low-hearing personal navigation within confined structures.

Research and development within the company primarily focuses on analysis of aerospace systems or sub-systems with potential for significant contributions to related technology. This analysis includes:   

1.    System modeling and simulation
   

2.    Spacecraft orbit design and analysis
   

3.    Kalman filter design and covariance analysis
   

4.    Component design and testing
   

We maintain extensive software tool development for many different applications. These tools are written for  MATLAB, Python, Ada, C/C++, Fortran, and other programming languages.

We develop and sell a commercially-available orbit visualization and analysis tool, Orbitus ED. This software tool, written in MATLAB, is designed for both academic students and industry professionals.

As part of our services division, we lease and operate several aircraft in Minnesota. These single-engine aircraft are primarily utilized for pilot training and local flights as part of the Minnesota  Gopher Flying Club. The aircraft have also been used for several long-distance trips.

Through our numerous programs, we have affiliations with many aerospace-related and medical-related research organizations. Many of these organizations are collaborators on our projects.

Our research programs often lead to very unique ideas and concepts. Thus, we have pursued patents on our intellectual property, with many being successfully awarded.

We encourage you to browse through our entire web site, as we provide a detailed listing of many of our on-going and past research and development programs. We also encourage young kids to visit our Kidspace webpage dedicated to them.

Please also read a message from the CEO and Chief Research Scientist – Suneel I. Sheikh