ASRI’s Rocket Engineers Take to the Global Stage at AIAA SciTech 2024
A team of students and staff from the Aerospace Systems Research Institute (ASRI) has participated in the 2024 SciTech aerospace conference held by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). ASRI received support for the trip from the Department of Science and Innovation.
SciTech showcases the very latest global developments in aerospace engineering. The event ran from 8 to 12 January in Orlando, Florida, and is one of the largest international aerospace conferences, attracting over 6000 delegates from 48 countries, including over 2000 students from the world’s top universities. In addition to academic presentations, AIAA hosts an exhibition of major aerospace companies such as SpaceX, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and NASA, to enable networking and knowledge transfer with young professionals.
This year, SciTech hosted 2500 technical presentations covering a range of cutting-edge topics from liquid propulsion cryogenics, machine learning in combustion, applied surrogate modeling, to hypersonics, aerodynamics and green engineering.
The ASRI team delivered 15 papers at the week-long conference, detailing the institute’s space propulsion research in hybrid, liquid and gelled propellant categories. These were positively received, resulted in the establishment of many valuable contacts and laid the foundation for new research collaborations with entities such as the University of Glasgow and the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
ASRI’s team to SciTech 2024 comprised 20 personnel, including postgraduate students, engineers, and senior engineers. Among other topics, the UKZN technical presentations focused on ASRI’s SAFFIRE liquid rocket engine ablative thrust chamber development, development of an injector test rig to characterize the behaviour and spray patterns of gelled rocket propellants, flight testing of the Phoenix 1C and 1D hybrid rockets, an ASRI-developed rocket propellant pump code, testing and numerical optimization of pumps using surrogate modelling, and the numerical and experimental analysis of slosh reduction in propellant tanks using different baffle configurations.
Copies of ASRI’s 2024 SciTech conference publications are available on the institute’s website at https://aerospace.ukzn.ac.za/publications/
SciTech 2024 provided ASRI and UKZN with invaluable international exposure. Importantly, it gave the institute’s personnel, especially the younger researchers, confidence-boosting experience in presenting to international audiences and the opportunity to rub shoulders with global leaders in the aerospace field. The conference also provided ASRI with a platform to highlight the quality of aerospace research being done in South Africa.
During the trip, the ASRI engineers were fortunate to visit nearby NASA Kennedy Space Center and tour the facilities. The team was able to get up close to some astonishing space hardware, including various early space-age rockets and propulsion units such as the Saturn V engines that took Apollo astronauts to the moon. In the KSC Gateway Center, the team observed a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster as well as replicas of Blue Origin’s New Shepard crew capsule, a Boeing Starliner simulator and flight-flown Orion EF1-1 and SpaceX Cargo Dragon COTS-2 capsules.
A highlight of the trip was an opportunity to watch two live launches of SpaceX Falcon rockets from Cape Canaveral. These were Starlink missions placing internet satellites into low-Earth orbit. One of the launches occurred at night, providing a particularly impressive display. The team returned to South Africa invigorated by their SciTech and NASA experiences and eager to continue their work, which focuses on developing a satellite launch capability for South Africa and the African continent.
Words: Vedanth Reddy
