Leaders from around the country joined Purdue leadership in celebrating the Hypersonics and Applied Research Facility, a 65,000-square-foot building that is home to two cutting-edge wind tunnels – including the only Mach 8 quiet wind tunnel in the world.
Every unruly environment needs someone to keep tabs on all the comings and goings, like the hall monitors who are ubiquitous in schools. But while the corridors and movements inside a school are bounded and relatively easy to chart, the great hall of space — in its cosmic vastness, large numbers of objects, and trajectory uncertainties — is another thing altogether.
Every single space launch has a high cost associated with mass and volume. A transformable system that can adapt its shape or function in situ, like an unfolding origami model, will address the challenges of high mass and volume demands in space missions.
Thendral Kamal, a sophomore in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, met her Purdue Engineering hero, Sirisha Bandla, a member of Purdue University's Cradle of Astronauts.