Description

The following summarizes the evenings presentation on ''Reusable launch of small satellites using scramjets'’.

The rapid pace of technology advancement is changing the requirements of current and future satellite launch systems. Both reduced scale and increased responsiveness will be the future drivers of access-to-space. Due to the rapid development of micro-scale, low power electronics, satellites that were many thousands of kilograms, now weigh just hundreds of kilograms. At present, almost all small satellites are launched using a ride-share service that piggy-backs onto a larger customer at a cost of up to US$50,000/kg. There is a significant commercial opportunity for the development of dedicated launchers for small satellites. The SPARTAN satellite launch system has been developed by the Centre for Hypersonics at the University of Queensland (UQ) in response to this opportunity. It is a three-stage rocket-scramjet-rocket system with the first two being reusable. The presentation will discuss the rapidly changing business of satellite launch, and how Australia could become a part of it.

Professor Michael Smart is the chief investigator on the five-year National and International Research Alliances partnership collaboration between UQ, the Queensland Government, Boeing, the United States Air Force and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation conducting scramjet-related flight tests as part of the HiFIRE program.

Professor Smart, who graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) at UQ in 1985 and Master of Engineering Science at UQ in 1987, was awarded a PhD at the Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York, in 1995.

He was appointed an Associate Professor in the Centre for Hypersonics in 2005 after spending 10 years as a research scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia.

As head of UQ's HyShot Group, Professor Smart leads scramjet related research within the Centre for Hypersonics, with particular emphasis on flight applications.

He received the 2012 International Congress for Aeronatucs (ICAS) Von Karman Award for International Co-operation in Aeronautics.


CONTRARY TO THE NOTICE; THE EVENT IS NOT FREE AND IS PRICED IN AUD AND NOT GBP.

Cost

Please go to the Engineers Australia website - https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/portal/event/queensland-mechanical-branch-annual-dinner-and-cpd-event - to complete registration and payment formalities.