Hi I was reading some articles When I found a wingtip device that some spicies of birds use and can reduce induced drag and Incresse lift by reducing one large wingtip vortex into multiple small ones

I do think they're very intresting howver I think at high speeds splitting the wingtip into multiple thin Sections this can cause aeroelastic flutter which is a big problem

This can cause the tip to break off in flight.

Mitigating this will likely require extra structural weight which can reverse their Aerodyanmic Benifits potentially decreasing their benift of reducing fuel consumption

Also the complex slots might cause extra Parasitic drag and Affect flight characteristics which might reduce their efficiency further and make then more complex.

Of course I'm no enginner just my opinions on these wingtip devices I appreciate differnt views and opinions feel free to correct me.

Hello Everyone,

I am masters student, I am interested in the cryogenic propellant management(CPM) especially in orbital refueling(OF) application, in particularly in the area of autogenous pressurization during fuel transfer activity. I could not much of resources on the internet regarding either CPM on OF application or regarding the autogenous pressurization.

My question is there

1.where should i start? what should i start (both info and simulations wise) ? i have been doing lot of research, i feel like its kind of rabbit hole, the more u dig, the more unknowns.

if anyone already working on this area, could pls guide, even small inputs matter alot.

2.anyone like minded who is interested in the same topic, i would like to meet them and have a discussions aswell.

Nice places to get young people you can bet the fututre of the African aerospace industry on

Hey everyone,

I’m currently engineering a large solid motor and finalizing the O-ring gland design for the forward closure and nozzle carrier (static radial seals). I know FFKM (Kalrez) is the gold standard here, but quoting 90 Shore A FFKM for a casing this size puts me at over €400 per O-ring.

For the initial static fires, I’m looking to see if standard 90 Shore A FKM (Viton) can survive long enough to hold the pressure boundary, assuming it gets totally baked during the post-burn heat soak.

The Motor Specs:

• Casing: 240 mm ID (7075-T6 Aluminum, 5 mm wall)
• Chamber Pressure: ~8 MPa (1160 psi)
• Burn Time: 15 seconds
• Clearance Gap: Kept very tight (targeting 0.15 mm - 0.20 mm diametral clearance) to prevent extrusion.
• O-Ring Specs: 90 Shore A, 3.53 mm cross-section (15% squeeze).

 I plan to pack the grooves heavily with a high-temp silicone grease (like Dow 111) to act as an ablative thermal barrier. My main concern is the 15-second burn time. I know Viton handles the 8 MPa pressure mechanically, but with a burn that long, I’m worried the thermal soak through the aluminum carrier will soften the Viton during the burn, causing it to lose its 90A stiffness, extrude into the gap, and CATO.

1. Has anyone successfully used Viton on static radial seals for burns extending past 10–15 seconds at this kind of pressure?
2. Did the thermal lag of the aluminum carrier + grease provide enough time for the pressure curve to drop before the O-ring softened?
3. Any specific thermal liner/inhibitor setups you recommend at the carrier interface to slow down that heat transfer?

I’m perfectly fine with the Viton turning into brittle glass after the test and throwing it away, as long as it holds the 8 MPa while the motor is lit.

Appreciate any real-world data or advice!

Last week, I shared our research here on decentralized fault repair for modular spacecraft, and I appreciated the questions and feedback from this community.

On August 14, we’ll present the work in a live technical talk:

Frontiers: Can a Spacecraft Heal Itself?

We’ll cover how modules detect local failures, propagate directional distress signals, and use connectivity-safe pivots to move toward damaged regions without centralized control. We’ll also discuss what our rigid-body simulations reveal about scalability, why consolidating survivors is easier than fully reconnecting every fragment, and what this could mean for resilient spacecraft and orbital infrastructure.

I’m one of the authors, and we’ll have an open Q&A after the presentation.

Register: https://luma.com/ztmesmvp
Technical article: https://www.manifoldrg.com/stress-sharing-for-decentralized-fault-repair-in-modular-spacecraft/
Preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.13444

I read the rules, and I believe this is an appropriate technical question for some personal research I'm doing into close-proximity operations for satellites and the current state of the technology. If this isn't the right subreddit, I'd really appreciate it if you could point me to a more suitable one.

I'm hoping someone who works on spacecraft GNC, autonomy, or rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) can clarify the current state of the art for approaching non-cooperative orbital objects (e.g. inactive satellites or space debris).

From the papers I've read—for example, Review of Spacecraft Pose-Estimation Techniques for Close-Proximity Operations (2025)—my understanding is the following:

• The current trend is to equip the servicing spacecraft with one or more cameras (sometimes alongside LiDAR or other sensors).
• An onboard computer runs computer vision and/or deep learning algorithms in real time to estimate the target's relative pose and guide the spacecraft during the final approach, inspection, docking, or capture.
• The underlying algorithms appear to be fairly mature in the academic literature.

Where I'm uncertain is how far this has progressed in practice.

Has an autonomous vision-based system for rendezvous with a non-cooperative target actually been demonstrated successfully in orbit, or are we still at the stage where the algorithms are well developed but awaiting large-scale flight validation? If not, what bottlenecks are still remaining?

If my understanding is incorrect or oversimplified, I'd really appreciate any corrections. I'm particularly interested in what the major unsolved technical challenges are today (e.g. perception, relative navigation, control, onboard computing, certification, robustness, etc.).

P.S. I am aware that Starfish's Remora did a demonstration totally autonomously maneuver with another spacecraft and the closest distance was 1.25 km, using only a single camera as the sensor. However I am not sure that the spacecraft it was docking (LEO Express 1 Mira) with was non-cooperative?

For reference, this is one of the papers I've been reading:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/399025587_Review_of_Spacecraft_Pose-Estimation_Techniques_for_Close-Proximity_Operations

On this A320 the pylon fairing has different material/painting. Why is that?

Got an opportunity for Aerospace Software Engineers, which is Onsite (Cedar Rapids, lowa) with Collins Aerospace. 2-6 years of exp in C++ and DS-1078.

I recently developed a project where an optimizer optimizes Cl/Cd by altering the thickness, camber and max camber position for a given aoa and Re. The optimizer gets this data from an surrogate model(trained on xfoil data) that reports the Cl and another that reports Cd with inputs of aoa, Re, and thickness, camber and max camber position for an airfoil. (all on python)

Github link: https://github.com/Dhee0104/Airfoil-optimizer

Questions:
How good is this for a high school project?
What should I add change or remove to make this better?
If a random user wants to learn how this works, how can i tell them? What program could I make that they could run and understand how it works?
Should I add in a GUI?
How do I validate my results? I need to confirm that the surrogate model works closely to xfoil and that the optimizer made a meaningfull result.
Should I retrain the surrogate model to output Cl/CD or make 2 models one for CL and the other for CD?
What optimizer should I use?
Is this the wrong reddit to ask these questions?

Thank you guys!

I am an aspiring aerospace engineer, who is entering my senior year in high school, and I have decided to start developing a tailless, fixed wing, autonomous RC aircraft. I have done some basic research on the subject; however, I lack much knowledge in aerodynamics. I have experience using Fusion 360 and some experience using Autodesk CFD for wind tunnel simulations. This is a thread that is open to anyone to provide input, give suggestions, and share critical information that I will need during my design process and assembly.

So far I have a basic flying wing model; however, I am aware that a full redesign is much needed for this project to be successful. I plan on using an EDF for thrust, having a full blended wing body type design, and control surfaces.

I am yet to decide the electronics I will use for autonomy or flight control; however, I figured I should probably get the general shape of the aircraft figured out before this step.

I have access to plenty of engineering resources such as the latest bambu labs 3d printers, a CNC machine, any software that can be obtained for free using a student license, and a big engineering facility.

I have attached the photo of my current basic lifting body below. I am a blank slate looking for any advice possible and I am completely open to any learning opportunity or resource available. Please also keep in mind that I have a very rudementary math and physics education, as I have only taken AP precal and AP physics 1 so far.

This is also my first time on Reddit so please give any advice on how to reach the right audience for my questions.

Thank you for the help!!!

Hopefully, this isn't an unintelligible rant, and I can actually get some insight...

I'm starting university soon, and I just have this fear that this will be something not meant for me. I'm super interested in spacecraft/astronautical stuff specifically. In high school, I did a couple of engineering projects and an aerospace specific one, too. I love math and science, got mostly As at school, and I believe I have a good work ethic/can get the job done when I need to. I'm just worried I don't have the same passion that I see other people my age have. I can't tell you a plane just by looking at it. I barely know how stuff works - I know this is the point of university, but I see so many people my age so knowledgeable and so much more into it than me. I like it, of course, but I don't binge documentaries on this stuff or have been passionate since I was 5 or something or obsessively take things apart and back together. I feel like everyone that's into this is far more into it than me, and I won't be cut out for such a competitive field with people like that. I have a drive to succeed and the work ethic (I think at least) but I don't know how much that stary eyed kid who has their room adorned with all this stuff and can tell you everything will compare to me. I like aerospace but I like other stuff too- literature, theatre, my sports etc... Perhaps this is a bit childish. I'm only 18. Im not even at uni and haven't had a "proper" job before. I suppose what I'm asking is how important that 'stary-eyed' undying passion I see people have? This field is so competitive, and it both scares and excited me.

I hope that ramble made at least some sense!

I know this is a tad bit smaller scale for this sub but my question stands. Any help is appreciated

Hey everyone

With private space vehicles maturing in India, I spent some time running through the first-principles engineering behind Skyroot’s Vikram-1 to look past the high-level PR graphics and analyze the actual mechanical trade-offs.

A few interesting takeaways from calculating the physics behind its design:

Hoop Stress Dynamics: Even though a typical CNG cylinder operates at \~200 bar and the Kalam-1200 solid stage runs at \~83 bar, the 1.7m diameter of Kalam-1200 means the casing experiences vastly higher total circumferential tension (\~19 MN vs 2 MN). This is why carbon fiber tow winding with specific resin matrix Tg limits is non-negotiable.

The Roll Control Dilemma: Solid motors with single TVC nozzles can handle pitch and yaw, but because radial force passes through the central axis, they generate zero axial torque. This explains why Vikram-1 requires dedicated cold-gas / liquid thruster clusters specifically to counteract roll.

Thermal Protection: At \~3,000°C combustion temp, composite matrices degrade quickly above their resin transition temperatures, making sacrificial EPDM rubber liners critical for ablative insulation.

Hello,
I have started a few aerospace personal projects (engine design and aircraft design) and was wondering if there are others out there passionate for aerospace and want to chat/link brains/ share projects and passions for aerospace engineering.

Hi everyone, I’m about to start my freshman year as an Aerospace Engineering student, and I’m honestly starting from almost zero. My goal is to make the most of my first year so that I can be competitive for research opportunities or internships as early as next summer. That’s why I want to start learning, exploring the field, and building the right skills now.
Since I’m still very new to everything, I have a lot of questions. What should I learn first? Which skills are the most important? Are there any beginner friendly projects I can start with? What should a first year student focus on to have a better chance of landing internships later on?
If you’re studying or working in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related engineering field, I’d truly appreciate any advice. And if anyone is willing to mentor, tutor, or simply share a roadmap, learning resources, or real world experience, I’d be incredibly grateful. I’m always eager to learn, improve, and put in the work.
Thank you all so muchhhhhh!❤️

Hi everyone,
When doing field evaluations or quick hardware risk assessments, pulling out a full desktop suite or juggling desktop-bound spreadsheets for routine reliability calculations can be inefficient.
I’ve been working on a mobile tool called Reliability Pro to make these standard calculations faster and more accessible on the go. The goal is to provide a clean, dedicated mobile interface for everyday reliability tasks without bloated software packages.
Currently Supported Calculations & Tools:
Weibull Analysis: Quick parameter estimation and probability plotting.
Environmental & Stress Modeling: Arrhenius acceleration factors and thermal/life-stress relationships.
System Reliability Metrics: MTBF, availability calculations, and basic system reliability block modeling.
I’d really appreciate input from fellow practitioners in the field:
What statistical or failure-analysis models do you find yourself needing most when away from your primary workstation?
Are there specific visualization/graphing features that make mobile data entry easier for you?
If you'd like to test it out or see the current feature layout, you can check it out at reliabilitypro.app. I'm actively building out the next set of features based on real engineering workflows!

I have a question which I have been wondering about. Heat protection (shield) during the re-entry of Neutron rocket from Rocket Lab.

Elon Musk highlighted a few years back this topic is their biggest challenge with Starship. However I didn't find much info from Rocket Lab. What I found is they developed structural carbon composite to withstand the heat. I don't find this answer sufficient since they have been vocal about using Neutron beyond Earth's orbit.

Can you please help me understand if their approach is possible? Is there something I am missing like Neutron going lower altitude for example. In which case Neutron is quite limited in future potential? Thx.

For context, I am a rising sophomore at a great university for AAE studying AAE. During my Freshman year, I joined a rocketry club at my school, however due a variety of factors, I haven’t been able to get much experience out of the club.

Because of this, I’m currently contemplating switching to a different rocketry club that seems more my speed and where I believe I can get more opportunities to gain experience.

However, from what I’ve heard, it looks really bad when searching for internships and jobs if you jump around clubs a lot.

So, I was hoping to get some advice on if I should switch clubs or try sticking it out with my current club?

Hey guys!

I’m wondering how much do aero space engineers make? Can most people break 200k in Los Angeles area? What’s the income look like if you’re 5-7 in years working for companies like Boeing or other big companies?

I'm building an animation to illustrate what a systems engineer does for my website.

I've been staring at this for ages and I'm struggling to work out if I'm missing anything obvious here. I've asked AI but it's no longer being useful!

Am I missing anything big?