High-speed Compressible Flows and Space Exploration

Departments: Applied Physics, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Time: Wednesday, September 13, 2023 - 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Type:
Presenter: Jason Rabinovitch is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Stevens Institute of Technology (Hoboken, NJ, USA).
Room/Office:
Location:
Mason Lab Room 107
United States
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MEMS Seminar Series - Jason Rabinovitch, Assistant Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology

High-speed compressible flows are relevant to a variety of different space applications. This talk will highlight ongoing research efforts related to two specific topics encompassing both engineering and planetary science applications: 1) modeling supersonic parachute inflations for Mars spacecraft, and 2) investigating the eruption mechanism of the Enceladus plume. The first topic addresses the challenges of modeling a single point failure system for a multi-billion dollar spacecraft during the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) phase of a mission, and the second topic focuses on a geophysical flow (the jets erupting from the south pole of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn), that potentially shares some similarities with terrestrial volcanism.

 

Bio: Jason Rabinovitch is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Stevens Institute of Technology (Hoboken, NJ, USA). Prior to Stevens, he was a Mechanical Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, where he worked in the Entry, Descent, and Landing & Formulation Group for ~6.5 years. Jason received a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Yale University in 2008, a M.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2009, a M.Sc. in Fluid Mechanics from École Polytechnique (Paris) in 2010, and a Ph.D. in Aeronautics from Caltech in 2014. While at JPL, Jason was fortunate to work on a wide range of projects, from delivering flight hardware to the Mars 2020 mission, designing, implementing, and testing a low-density low-speed open jet fan-array wind tunnel for the (successful!) Mars Helicopter, to developing a hybrid rocket propulsion system for small satellites. His current research interests span a wide range of topics related to experimental and computational fluid mechanics applied to EDL, vehicle design, propulsion, and geophysical applications.