THE USC ADVANCED SPACECRAFT PROPULSION AND ENERGY LABORATORY

What We Do

Founded in August 2018, the Advanced Spacecraft Propulsion and Energy
(ASPEN) Laboratory at USC started as the nation’s only student-led research group
focused on modeling nuclear-based spacecraft propulsion systems. Initially comprised of eight undergraduate students, and three faculty advisors, Dr. Charles Radovich, Dr. Paul Giuliano, and Dr. Matthew Gilpin, the team has grown to include various undergraduates from across engineering disciplines. We are a multi-disciplinary and driven team with a shared passion for advanced propulsion concepts. In the fall of 2022 ASPEN expanded and, under the advisement of Dr. Lubos Brieda, began working on the Asteria Thruster on top of our previous research in nuclear propulsion (the Hyperion-I Campaign). This project focuses on producing a solid-fuel adamantane thruster to be fitted on a satellite design.

HYPERION-I CAMPAIGN

Hyperion-I is ASPEN’s first engine modeling a solid-core nuclear thermal rocket engine using an inductively heated, additively manufactured metallic core. An overarching view of the development campaign for Hyperion-1 includes three Phases of modeling and hardware testing. Experimental data from each phase will be compared to corresponding linked multiphysics models in ANSYS. Three test articles, starting with a single tube and ending with a full printed core, will be tested with gaseous nitrogen while in an inductive heating environment used to model the nuclear fission that occurs in true solid-core nuclear thermal engines.

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PHASE I

Fall 2019

PHASE II

Spring/Fall 2021, Spring/Fall 2022, Spring/Fall 2023

PHASE III

Spring/Fall 2024

Home: Overview

ASTERIA THRUSTER

The Asteria Thruster is ASPEN's newest project, starting in 2022. The goal of this project is to produce a solid-fuel adamantane plasma thruster to be implemented on a satellite design. The overview of this project can be divided into four main stages of modeling and hardware testing . A small plasma thruster will be constructed and placed in a vacuum chamber to produce a plasma bloom. We hope to run a numerical study to increase the efficiency of the thruster, research the effectiveness of adamantane as a fuel source, and eventually produce a full-scale working propulsion device.