A visit by black hawk military helicopter sets the stage for UK’s aerospace program
Originally published by WEKU.
The landing of a military Black Hawk utility helicopter Thursday on the University of Kentucky campus may have set the scene. But behind the scenes at tables under a shade tree were students in the school’s aerospace program. Owensboro Graduate Student Kate Rhoads is participating in what she termed as a cheap way for entities, public and private, to test heat-shield materials.
“So as companies like NASA and people are wanting to see if their heat shields work. They can put them on our capsules and we can provide them a really cost-effective method, just to do a preliminary test on their heat-shield materials,” said Rhoads.
All the data comes from the Kentucky Re-entry Universal Payload System or KRUPS’ small cone-like container. And Rhoads said it has applications for protecting spacecraft coming back through earth’s atmosphere.
Stu Johnson
At another nearby table there were students examining another mode of flight, rocketry. Louisville Aerospace Engineering Senior Lucas Stevenson said there’s significant attention given to 3-D printing with this research.
“So, people are really starting to get interested in how they can 3-D print everything, cause 3-D printing, there’s no limitation on your shape. Like you can make whatever you want,” said Stevenson.
The UK competitive rocketry team made a splash by winning its first competition in California earlier this summer. Stevenson says the team is now setting its sights on a bigger competition in New Mexico.
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Originally published by WEKU.
Republished with permission.
