Zack Cordero
MIT, USA
Abstract
Fully reusable heavy-lift launch vehicles promise order-of-magnitude reductions in launch cost—but only if their engines survive repeated operation in one of the most extreme propulsion regimes ever engineered. Modern staged-combustion rocket engines operate at ultra-high pressures and temperatures, with severe thermal transients during start-up, shutdown, and in-flight restarts.
Unlike expendable systems, reusable engines must deliver peak performance while surviving tens of flight cycles. This keynote examines the economics of reusability and the performance-life tradeoffs that now define rocket engine design.
Raising turbopump turbine temperatures increases specific impulse and payload, but accelerates thermomechanical fatigue and shortens component life. Systems-level analyses reveal cost-optimal operating conditions that balance performance gains against replacement and maintenance costs.
Expanding this frontier requires coordinated advances in materials, manufacturing, and architecture, from ignition-resistant alloys and oxygen-compatible coatings to novel thrust chamber designs and turbine rotors engineered to mitigate thermal fatigue.
Reusable rockets demand integrated propulsion and structures design grounded in materials physics and lifecycle economics.
Speaker Bio
Zack Cordero is the Edgerton Career Development Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT where he serves as Associate Director of the Gas Turbine Laboratory.
He received an SB in physics and a PhD in materials science and engineering from MIT.
Prior to joining the MIT faculty, Zack held appointments as a postdoctoral fellow in the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and as an assistant professor in the Materials Science and Nano Engineering department at Rice University.
Zack’s research at MIT seeks to enable frontier aviation and space platforms through advanced materials, manufacturing, and structures.
Batiste Allilaire
Airbus Defence and Space, Toulouse, France
Wojciech Suder
Cranfield University, UK
Advenit Makaya
European Space Agency, Netherlands