A team from 草莓社区 is the first from the United States to join an international collaborative project to design an economically viable, hypersonic, 300-passenger aircraft.
The H2020 STRATOFLY academy, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (known popularly as CERN) and the European Space Agency have invited input from university teams through a massive open online platform, said Professor Stefano Colafranceschi. Its goal is 鈥渉igh-speed civil passenger transport along antipodal routes in the stratosphere鈥� by 2030-35, .
The EMU team 鈥� Isaac Andreas, Duncan Ferency-Viars, Ethan Herman, Jacob Horsley, Philip Park and Graham Stauffer 鈥� will focus on remote sensing with fiber optics to provide the plane鈥檚 pilots and computers with real-time monitoring of plane conditions, and on advanced programmable computer architecture, said Colafranceschi.
Stauffer, a senior computer science major, said he joined the cross-discipline team to gain hands-on, real-world programming and testing experience.
鈥淚鈥檓 looking forward to being able to work with new people I haven鈥檛 yet gotten to take classes with,鈥� he said, 鈥渁s well as being able to work on a project that combines my field of study (computer science) with my personal interests in aviation and engineering.鈥�
The European Union-funded STRATOFLY project 鈥渋s highly multidisciplinary and combines technological and operative issues,鈥� its states. In addition to economic, public safety and other issues, a new hypersonic jet must integrate 鈥渋nnovative propulsion systems, unconventional structural configurations and systems for the thermal and energy management鈥� with reduced emissions and noise, among other attributes.
International connections 鈥� specifically 鈥済etting to learn from and connect with people from all over鈥� 鈥� drew Andreas, a sophomore math and computer science major, to the project, as did the more immediate experience of being part of the team.
鈥淐ertainly learning collaboration skills will be helpful in the future,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 hope we can add something substantial from EMU.鈥�
Ultimately, Colafranceschi told the team, any contributions to such a project face a tricky test: integration with all other aspects of the plane鈥檚 design. That will take research and trial and error.
鈥淒on鈥檛 expect that whatever you will do will be successful,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here are many things that will go wrong. Satisfaction is when you see that your component is happily integrated into the larger project.鈥�
Students, if you’d like to get onboard, email聽highspeededucation@emu.edu
This is an awesome concept whose time has come. I expect good things from this team. Keep us updated.