Title: Dispersion of Spacecraft Components During Re-entry

By Professor David Buttsworth, Ph.D.

Professor at School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland Australia

ABSTRACT: Abstract: Destructive re-entry trajectories for satellites at end-of-life are designed so debris remaining after re-entry falls harmlessly to the Earth. However, the dramatic increase in the mass of orbiting objects has outpaced improvements in predicting hazardous impact zones. This seminar provides a brief overview of the problem and introduces some of the experimental and theoretical methods being used at the University of Southern Queensland to study separation of objects in hypersonic flow in order to better predict the dispersion of debris from re-entering space objects.

BIO: Professor David Buttsworth leads the Hypersonics and Rocketry research group at the University of Southern Queensland.  The work of the group is mainly focused on experimental studies in the hypersonic wind tunnel which he designed, but this work is also complemented by rocketry and airborne diagnostics developments in collaboration with Rocket Technologies International.

October 15, 2021 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Attend in person projection in JH-109 or via Zoom (https://nmsu.zoom.us/j/99609263954).  

If you are interested in visiting our department and giving a seminar lecture, please send an e-mail to Dr. Andreas Gross.