Dr. Mark Sykes

Mark Sykes' research focus is interplanetary dust, asteroids, comets and other small bodies in the solar system. He discovered comet dust trails, from which he determined that comets were primarily rocky bodies rather than the canonical "dirty snowballs" of the time. He discovered numerous asteroid dust bands after the first bands were detected by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite and determined that their origins were recent collisions of small asteroids. He continues to study dust trails and other extended solar system structures in data from the Wide-field Infrared Explorer. Sykes and colleagues have found dozens of additional trails, confirming their commonality as a fundamental characteristic of short-period comets. 

Sykes was a Co-Investigator on the NASA Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres. He designed the satellite search strategy used at Vesta and Ceres, and studied the impact-driven geomorphology of both objects, their exogenic surface contamination, and the relationship between the formation of the Rheasilvia and Veneneia basins and the extensive Vesta asteroid family. He participated in work demonstrating that Ceres may have subsurface reservoirs of brine, giving rise to recent cryovolcanism and the emergence of bright deposits of evaporites. Combined with the observations of an active Pluto surface by New Horizons, this underscores the likelihood that many dwarf planets might be geologically active.

Sykes has a long-term interest in advanced propulsion technology. In the 1990s, working with NASA Glenn engineers, he designed numerous planetary missions proposed to the Discovery program using solar electric propulsion including multiple asteroid rendezvous and a comet rendezvous mission, culminating in Dawn. He also designed and was PI of a Pluto orbiter mission proposal which was to be powered by a uranium reactor. He was PI of the proposed Eve mission to 10 Hygeia (a Dawn follow-on). He is continuing to examine nuclear electric propulsion missions to orbit dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt and a plasma propulsion mission to flyby the interstellar object 'Oumuamua. He currently serves on an advisory board for a solar sail technology demonstration mission.

Sykes has also been involved in insitu space resource utilization and its potential for advancing human space activities since the 1980s. He proposed a self-sustainable space transportation system in the 1990s based on NEO ISRU and nuclear thermal propulsion. He led the PSI portion of a PSI-Raytheon Missile Systems team, proposing an architecture for the Vision for Exploration, which was based on ISRU from NEOs, the Moon, Martian moons, and the surface of Mars. He was on the Board of Advisors for Planetary Resources, Incorporated, and was invited to testify before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology on proposed legislation regarding NEO ISRU and its commercial future.