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Integrated Plasma Diagnostics and RF Telemetry for Hypersonic Flight Environments

September 10, 2026

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Project Description

Hypersonic vehicles operate within complex ionized flow environments that can affect communications, sensing, navigation, telemetry, and electromagnetic signatures. Recent feasibility demonstrations at Purdue have established the foundation for plasma measurements in flight-relevant hypersonic ground-test conditions and created new opportunities to study interactions between high-enthalpy plasma flows and electromagnetic systems.

This project seeks to develop integrated experimental and modeling approaches for characterizing hypersonic plasma environments and quantifying their effects on radio-frequency signal propagation. Research activities may include plasma diagnostics using Langmuir probes and optical or spectroscopic techniques, RF transmission and reflection measurements, telemetry-through-plasma experiments, development of advanced diagnostic instrumentation, and comparison with computational flow and plasma simulations. The project will leverage Purdue's unique hypersonic ground-test and diagnostic capabilities to enable measurements that are difficult to obtain in other laboratory environments.

The successful fellow will work at the intersection of hypersonics, aerospace engineering, plasma physics, electromagnetics, and experimental methods, with opportunities to help shape the research direction and develop new diagnostic capabilities.

Start Date

January 1, 2027

Postdoc Qualifications

Candidates with backgrounds in plasma physics, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, applied physics, electromagnetics, optical diagnostics, or related disciplines are encouraged to apply. Experience in laboratory experimentation, instrumentation development, diagnostics, RF systems, spectroscopy, data analysis, or computational modeling is desirable. Successful candidates should be excited to work across disciplinary boundaries and develop new experimental capabilities for hypersonic plasma environments.

Co-advisors

Alexey Shashurin, ashashur@purdue.edu, AAE, https://engineering.purdue.edu/EPPL
Jason McKinney, mckinnjd@purdue.edu, ECE

Bibliography

  1. Kundrapu, M., Loverich, J., Beckwith, K., Stoltz, P., Shashurin, A., & Keidar, M. (2015). Modeling radio communication blackout and blackout mitigation in hypersonic vehicles. Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, 52(3), 853-862.
  2. Gillman, E. D., Foster, J. E., & Blankson, I. M. (2010). Review of leading approaches for mitigating hypersonic vehicle communications blackout and a method of ceramic particulate injection via cathode spot arcs for blackout mitigation. NASA/TM-2010-216220.
  3. Patel, K., Saha, A., Satija, A., Meyer, T. R., Bane, S. (2026). Single-shot ultrafast dynamics of nanosecond pulsed plasmas: Transition from ps–ns nonequilibrium to near-full ionization. Applied Physics Letters, 129, 064101.
  4. Jenrow, H., Reindersma, K., Shashurin, A. (2026). Focused Coherent Microwave Scattering for Spatially Resolved Electron Number Density Diagnostics. arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.21520, https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.21520.
  5. Slack, Jared (2025). Investigation of the Core Flow of the HYPULSE Hypervelocity Shock Tunnel. urdue University Graduate School. Thesis. https://doi.org/10.25394/PGS.28892411.v1