Michael Bedard, graduate student of School of AAE Professor William Anderson, recently presented a paper to the 65th International Astronautical Congress in Toronto, Canada. The paper, Student Design/Build/Test of a Throttleable LOX/LCH4 Thrust Chamber, was written by Bedard, along with fellow AAE graduate student Eric Meier, and AAE faculty member, Dr. William Anderson. The project detailed in the paper is based on liquid oxygen/liquid methane rocket engine development for the NASA Morpheus test vehicle.

The theme of this year’s Congress was The World Needs Space, was attended by over 3,000 participants, and featured up to 20 parallel technical sessions, several plenary events and special lectures with speakers from the space community. Additionally, there was a wide variety of contained and special events including the annual conferences of the International Institute of Space Law and the International Academy of Astronautics.

NASA's Morpheus Project has developed and tested a prototype planetary lander capable of vertical takeoff and landing. Designed to serve as a vertical testbed (VTB) for advanced spacecraft technologies, the vehicle provides a platform for bringing technologies from the laboratory into an integrated flight system at relatively low cost. This allows individual technologies to mature into capabilities that can be incorporated into human exploration missions.

To read more about NASA’s Project Morpheus, visit: http://morpheuslander.jsc.nasa.gov/about/

To see test day video from Purdue’s world-class rocket test facility at the Maurice Zucrow Laboratories, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2xytZDvmDM

Photo Caption: School of AAE grad students with Bill Nye, The Science Guy.
From left: School of Aeronautics and Astronautics graduate students and co-authors Michael Bedard (left) and Eric Meier (back), Anne Caraccio (chemical engineer from Kennedy Space Center and Eric's fiancé - front), and Bill Nye (right).