UAH doctoral candidate designs rotating detonation engine aimed to boost lunar and Mars missions

Michaela Hemming, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), is using a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO) fellowship to make advances in propulsion under the guidance of NASA engineers.Hemming has designed a small-scale rotating detonation engine (RDE) manufactured by NASA as part of a joint research effort.

Rotating Detonation Engine test-fired for first time at UAH’s Johnson Research Center

A Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) has been test-fired for the first time at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of the University of Alabama System. RDEs are a tantalizing engineering concept that could be transformative for rocket propulsion