AIAA SciTech 2020

January 12, 2020

This past week I attended AIAA SciTech 2020 for a few days! This year’s conference took place in Orlando, and it made for quite the trip. A classmate of mine, Kylar, and I flew out of Stillwater Sunday January 5th, and we’d both attend the conference to present technical papers for publication. These were both papers based on class projects we completed for our advisor, Dr. Kurt Rouser in the spring 2019 semester based around rocket propulsion.

Kylar presented a paper demonstrating manufacture, safety, and firings of potassium nitrate-sorbitol (KNSB) propellant rocket motors for academic purposes. He gave the presentation first thing Monday morning, and then we hung around until I presented my paper on Wednesday. The conference itself covered all kinds of research in aerospace spanning education, CFD, fluid flows, aerodynamics, space research, and some propulsion. Compared to AIAA Propulsion and Energy that I attended in 2018, not as many talks piqued my interest, and Tuesday in particular was one of the slower days. However, a couple of the plenary speakers were fantastic. Dr. Danielle Wood of MIT presented on using space technologies to improve sustainability on Earth and preserving landmarks in our solar system like the Moon and Mars. Dr. Ellen Stofan of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum gave a great lecture as well, but on improvements the museum is making and involving more girls and women in STEM (and STEAM). This video narrated by Harrison Ford, is a wonderful promotional piece the museum made on that subject.

This region of Orlando was warm and beautiful.

My presentation Wednesday went very well. Our paper, Design and Test of a Small-Scale, Additively-Manufactured, Liquid-Cooled Rocket Nozzle, was well received, and I didn’t get any prying questions about our use of primitive polymer nozzles. While I can no longer publish the paper for my own use, I’ve linked the presentation slides for download here in .pptx. The link to the publication is here

This trip was coincidentally well timed because following day 1 of SciTech, SpaceX launched their Starlink 2 mission. Kylar and I rounded up the other OSU attendees, and we rented an SUV to drive out to the space coast for the evening’s launch. I had contacted my friend Joel with whom I interned at NASA in 2018 (we were even roommates for the summer) because he began working at ULA last year on the Cape. He was able to pull a few strings and get me onto base not only for the launch, but even a personal tour of some of ULA’s facilities. That was an awesome experience, and in addition to the spectacular launch (my 2nd to witness, the previous being CRS-15 in 2018) we got to catch up, and I learned about his position within the company. So thank you, Joel for making this possible! 

The experience attending the conference, coupled with the launch Monday evening made for an awesome, albeit short, trip to Florida to begin the new year! My 12th and final semester at OSU begins tomorrow, and I’m ready to make this one the best yet. 

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