Education:
B.S., Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology  
M.S., Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Ava Thrasher has been a research engineer for the Space Exploration Analysis Laboratory (SEAL) since June of 2024. Ava's research background and interests are in optical navigation (OPNAV) solutions for spacecraft.

Among the many projects at SEAL, Ava recently contributed to a first-of-its-kind optical navigation experiment using the Lunar Flashlight spacecraft. This project demonstrated a multitude of OPNAV techniques with a emphasis on triangulation from optical measurements to distant and nearby planets. Using only these optical measurements extracted from real imagery captured by Lunar Flashlight, Ava performed orbit determination for the deep-space spacecraft, and recreated a trajectory estimation comparable to the available ephemeris data.

Ava is also a primary developer for SEAL's Software for Optical Navigation and Instrument Calibration (SONIC), an open-sourced software package designed to give engineers quick access to the tools needed for OPNAV. In collaboration with the SONIC team, she has created and is helping up-keep algorithms within SONIC to tackle various aspects of OPNAV, including image processing, projective geometry, camera calibration, horizon-based OPNAV, and more.

In addition to these current projects, her previous research experience has included a large focus on terrain relative navigation (TRN). In her graduate studies and beyond, Ava spent much of her time creating a crater detection and identification algorithm for position estimation of lunar orbiters and landers.

Outside of the lab, Ava spends much of her time as an avid longsword fencer, reading science fiction or non fiction, and exploring the great outdoors.