UB Awarded $8.5 Million to Improve Hybrid Space Rockets, Advance Exascale Computing Technologies

Paul DesJardin is leading a team of researchers to study hybrid rockets, a technology that could provide a safer and less expensive way to explore outer space compared to conventional rockets. The $8.5 million U.S. Department of Energy award also enabled UB to establish the Center for Hybrid Rocket Exascale Simulation Technology (CHREST).

Paul DesJardin

The award provides the resources to explore how hybrid rockets — a nearly 100-year-old concept that’s getting a fresh look thanks to advancements in computing power and artificial intelligence — can be used to launch satellites into space using common fuels like candle wax and kerosene.

Slab motor experiment showing the burning of paraffin wax fuel used in hybrid rockets.

“Our mission is to improve our understanding of how these rocket systems work and to help optimize their performance,” says Paul DesJardin, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and CHREST director.

UB will use the bulk of the funds to acquire extremely powerful computers, which the team will use to simulate previously developed hybrid rockets, as well as future theoretical rockets. The team will also develop machine learning algorithms that offer insight into how to better design hybrid rockets.

Potential future uses of hybrid rockets include launching satellites, especially nanosatellites, into space from Earth. Such systems also could be very useful in situations where high thrust is required to lift heavy payloads loads into space from planetary surfaces, such as NASA’s planned Mars Ascent mission.

Another component of the grant involves educating UB students about hybrid technology. A portion of the funds will support a team of undergraduates who compete in the annual Spaceport America Cup, the world’s largest intercollegiate rocket engineering conference and competition.

The grant will support Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS), a UB student club that builds rockets like these.

“This award puts UB students at the forefront of scholarly activity in an incredibly exciting field that’s of great interest to NASA and other federal agencies, as well as private aerospace companies like SpaceX,” says DesJardin, who added that the research team will also work with doctoral students in UB’s Computational and Data Enabled Science and Engineering program.

In addition to DesJardin, UB investigators include Varun Chandola and Matthew Knepley, both associate professors in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering; James Chen, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Mark Swihart, UB Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Matthew Jones, interim director and lead computational scientist at the UB Center for Computational Research; and Letitia Thomas, assistant dean for diversity in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Abani Patra, Stern Family Professor of Computer Science at Tufts University, is also an investigator.

The team will work with an advisory board of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

CHREST is one of nine new Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program III Centers selected by the energy department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The awards support science-based modeling and simulation and exascale computing technologies. The nine centers are funded by NNSA’s Advanced Simulation and Computing program, which engages the U.S. academic community in advancing science-based modeling and simulation technologies.

by Cory Nealon