Space Center Draws Chem Engineers Into Research Orbit

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, now in its fifth year, has acquired a new partner. Effective immediately, the Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering will join the departments of biological sciences, chemistry and biochemistry, geosciences, mechanical engineering, and physics as a partner.

“The exploration of space is a joint science and engineering undertaking, and students and faculty are afforded a unique opportunity to explore ways scientists and engineers work together on large-scale complex problems,” said Tom Spicer, chair of chemical engineering. “Chemical engineering traditionally has a unique role to play in space research, through the chemistry of combustion and the mechanics of handling propellants, to the selection of heat shield and other materials for spacecraft use.”

Space center faculty member Rick Ulrich of the chemical engineering department, who has a long-standing interest in astronomical photography, will bring his expertise to the space center in several research projects involving chemical engineering problems and he will teach a graduate-level course in planetary atmospheres.

“The center’s unique interdisciplinary infrastructure is enabling its faculty members to attract students with strong interests in space and planetary sciences who may not otherwise have come here,” said Derek Sears, director of the center. “For example, the center’s summer undergraduate intern program brings to our campus students from all over the country to give them a taste of what it would be like to perform research in space and planetary sciences. 

“The center is now also recruiting graduate students who want to study for one of the new graduate degrees in space and planetary science,” Sears added. “These students comment that they are attracted not just to space and planetary sciences but to the truly interdisciplinary nature of the center here.”

Faculty and their students in the center conduct research into solar system exploration, into the nature of asteroids and the surface of Mars, for instance, and they design missions and instruments to fly on space missions. 

The space center recently announced its latest round of competitive collaborative research proposals and expects to make 12 awards to University of Arkansas faculty to enable them to perform research in the space and planetary sciences with their colleagues and students, according to Sears.

“University centers do not exist without departments,” said Sears. “Departments provide faculty, courses, laboratories and other facilities needed by the center, and while the center can also provide resources, it is primarily a mechanism to bring the faculty and students together to do things they would not do alone. The Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering strengthens the engineering elements of our research and education projects by bringing a new and valuable kind of expertise to our group.”