Toroidal propeller

Structural and Thermal-Fluids Engineering

Our mission is to provide structural, thermal, fluids, aerodynamic, and materials engineering solutions for a variety of prototypes. We help teams across the Laboratory make their systems smaller and lighter, operable with less power usage, and capable of withstanding challenging environmental conditions by applying integrated analyses, environmental and performance characterization tests, and advanced materials. Our activities include creating lightweight, efficient structures for space-borne imaging and laser communication terminals. We also build novel thermal management systems for high-flux laser and RF solid-state devices, and we use multifunctional materials to develop innovative aerodynamic designs for unmanned aerial vehicles.

Featured Projects

a photo of a small satellite in a studio
weather
A constellation of small satellites is collecting rapidly refreshed weather data to advance studies of hurricane structure and intensity and improve forecasts.
The International Space Station will be outfitted with our ILLUMA-T laser terminal to provide optical communications.
lasers
The ILLUMA-T will enable optical communications on the International Space Station.
SensorSat was launched and deployed into orbit from this Minotaur IV rocket. Photo courtesy of Orbital ATK
space situational awareness
A small satellite is providing imagery of a big swath of near-space.

Advancing Our Research

Featured Publications

Photothermal speckle modulation for noncontact materials characterization

Dec 15
Opt. Lett., Vol. 40, No. 24, 15 December 2015, pp. 5786-9.

Multi-lithic phased array architecture for airborne sense and avoid radar

Oct 15
2013 IEEE Int. Symp. On Phased Array Systems and Technology, 15-18 October 2013.