Cutting-edge hypersonics research for Highly Reliable Reusable Launch Systems will enable sustained hypersonic flight through the atmosphere and can help the Department of Defense achieve its goal of reaching targets from the air with global reach, quick reaction, persistence, and significant payload. The research focused on High Mass Mars Entry Systems will result in the development of technologies and concepts that can enable the safe and accurate delivery of large payloads to the surface of Mars. This effort will facilitate the EDL phase of both human and robotic planetary missions and is closely aligned with the long-term goals of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration.

The project will focus its research on solving some of the hardest challenges in hypersonics such as the development of materials for airframe and propulsion applications that can withstand severe temperatures; the development of predictive models for compressible flow, turbulence, heating, ablation, and combustion; the creation of advanced control techniques for vehicles that fly in the hypersonic flow regime; and the generation of new experimental techniques that can be used to validate our theoretical and computational models. In addition, the project will work towards realizable propulsion systems that integrate high-speed turbine engines and scramjets, and will tie together all of the interactions among the airframe, inlet, nozzle, and propulsion systems using a Physics-Based MDAO approach.

The following are ROA-2006 NRA awards for the Hypersonics Project, with the most recent listed first.

PI Last Name Title Organization State Award Date Year 1 Amount Magaldi NDE and Damage Characterization of CMC Materials Hyper-Therm High Temperature Composites, Inc. CA 02/28/2007 $149,000 Cuneo Test Method Development for Use in the Analysis of Ceramic Matrix Composites in Advanced Structural and Thermal Protection System Hypersonic Applications Southern Research Institute AL 02/27/2007 $174,000 Vogel FADS-based Reconfigurable Control and Health Monitoring for Hypersonic Vehicles Vibroacoustics Solutions Inc. IA 01/31/2007 $201,000 Hamner Adaptation of Temperature and Pressure Sensitive Paint Technology for Basic Hypersonic Research LeaTech, LLC MA 01/31/2007 $92,000 Sullivan Integrated Durability Model for Ceramic Matrix Composite Components Materials Research & Design Inc. PA 01/31/2007 $150,000 Adamovich Nonequilibrium ignition and flame holding in high speed reacting flows Ohio State University OH 01/30/2007 $170,000 Lempert Development of MHz frame rate optical diagnostics for hypersonic ground test facilities Ohio State University OH 01/30/2007 $244,000 Przekop Probabilistic Analysis and Design Tools for High-Cycle Fatigue Resistant Hypersonic Vehicle Structures National Institute Of Aerospace Associates VA 01/30/2007 $98,000 Levin Coupled nonequilibrium flow, energy and radiation transport of hyper planetary entry Penn State University PA 01/29/2007 $198,000 Cutler Simultaneous Dual-broadband CARS and Interferometric Rayleigh Scattering The George Washington University DC 01/26/2007 $256,000 MacLean Measuring Wake Flows on Capsule Bodies CALSPAN-UB Research Center, Inc. NY 01/26/2007 $171,000 Santoro Performance Studies of the Ejector Mode of an Unsteady Pulse Detonation RBCC Engine Penn State University PA 01/26/2007 $220,000 Zhigilei Multiscale Computational Model for Multifunctional Nanocomposite Ablator Materials University of Virginia VA 01/26/2007 $208,000 Shaqfeh High Fidelity Simulations Tools for Space Exploration Vehicles Leland Stanford Junior University CA 01/25/2007 $200,000 Huo Chemical reaction and electron-impact excitation rates for direct numerical simulations and radiation transport modeling in the hypersonic regime HUO Consulting LLC CA 01/25/2007 $114,000 Hanson Hypersonic Mass-flux Sensing with Fiber-Coupled Tunable Diode Lasers for Ground Test Applications and Flight Evaluation Leland Stanford Junior University CA 01/25/2007 $150,000 Schneider Towards Mechanism-Based Models for Laminar-Turbulent Transition on a Representative Airbreathing Forebody: Mach-6 Quiet-Tunnel Experiments Purdue University ID 01/25/2007 $100,000 Jaberi A high fidelity model for numerical simulation of complex combustion and propulsion systems Michigan State University MI 01/25/2007 $155,000 Rodriguez Robust Hierarchical Control (Hi-C) for Future Hypersonic Vehicles with Aero-Thermo-Elastic-Propulsion Interaction Arizona State University AZ 01/23/2007 $189,000 Lind Multi-Loop Adaptive Control of Aerothermoelastic Dynamics University of Florida FL 01/23/2007 $205,000 Powers Advanced Multi-Scale Computational Methods for Hypersonic Propulsion University of Notre Dame DU LAC ID 01/23/2007 $116,000 Annaswamy Adaptive Robust Control for Hyp Vehicles (ARCH) Massachusetts Institute of Technology MA 01/23/2007 $177,000 Wu Reconfigurable robust gain-scheduled control for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles North Carolina State University NC 01/23/2007 $157,000 McDaniel Combustion Efficiency Measurement for Ground Test and Basic Hypersonic Research University of Virginia VA 01/23/2007 $199,000 Holton Protected, High Temperature Optical Fiber Sensors, Gauge Elements and Systems Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University VA 01/23/2007 $157,000 Chelliah Reduced Reaction Models for Hypersonic Reacting Flow Simulations: Model Development and Validation Study University of Virginia VA 01/23/2007 $144,000 Goyne Test Media Effects on DMSJ Mode-Transition University of Virginia VA 01/20/2007 $225,000 Eldredge Numerical Investigations of Transitional and Turbulent Flow Physics in Hypersonic Boundary Layers University of California CA 01/19/2007 $150,000 Yang Low-Cost Manufacturing of C/ZrC Composites using Melt Infiltration/Reaction Approach for Ultrahigh Temperature TPS Applications University of California CA 01/19/2007 $150,000 Candler Advanced Aerothermodynamics Simulation Tools for HMMES Design and Optimization University of Minnesota MN 01/19/2007 $170,000 Xu Adaptive Identification and Control for Nonlinear Aerospace Systems by Multi-Parameter Regularization Syracuse University NY 01/19/2007 $103,000 Bhattacharya Robust Adaptive Guidance for High Mass Entry, Descent and Landing at Mars Texas Engineering Experiment Station TX 01/19/2007 $175,000 Mavriplis High Order Spatial and Temporal Methods for Simulation and Sensitivity Analysis of High-Speed Flows University of Wyoming WY 01/19/2007 $150,000 Edwards Development of Hybrid Large-Eddy / Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Methods for High-Speed Internal Flows North Carolina State University NC 01/17/2007 $170,000 Mangalam High-Sensitivity Heat Flux Gage for Calibrated Heat Transfer Measurements TAO Systems Integration, Inc. VA 01/17/2007 $198,000 Legzdina Optimization of Creep and Fatigue Resistance of Near Alpha Titanium alloys by Utilizing Beta Processing Route Honeywell International, Inc. AZ 01/09/2007 $120,000 Dunfey Design, Fabrication, and Testing of Load-Bearing TPS Materials Research & Design PA 12/27/2006 $150,000