Sandia National Labs Academic Programs Collaboration Report

CONTRIBUTOR Spotlight

Katya Casper is well known for her innovative techniques measuring the effects of pressure on hypersonic vehicles using the wind tunnels at Sandia. Her breakthrough in characterizing hypersonic turbulent spots and her work with novel fluctuating pressure instrumentation led to her Lawrence Sperry Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She and Georgia Tech are currently collaborating on other LDRD hypersonic projects.

“ Our UCAH project combines expertise in control and estimation theory from Georgia Tech and Texas A&M with the immense hypersonics experience at Sandia ,” says Mazumdar. “The Sandia hypersonic wind tunnel will play a critical role in this project as it enables our team to experimentally quantify, validate, and improve the performance of our control methods.” This joint effort is addressing problems that directly impact the U.S. hypersonics enterprise.

Over 200 people attended panels focused on “leap ahead” technologies at the UCAH Spring Forum in March 2022.

Sandia’s Dennis Helmich, the director of Integrated Military Systems Development, provided the keynote

address. Dr. Gillian Bussey, Joint Hypersonic Transition Office director, said that the UCAH focus is to leap far ahead where the capabilities of the U.S. will be unmatched and not easily imitated. The mission of the UCAH focuses on delivering time-sensitive applied research and prototype solutions to the Department of Defense in the following areas: Materials, Structures and Thermal Protection Systems Guidance, Navigation and Control Air-breathing Propulsion

Hypersonic Environments and Phenomenology Applied Aerodynamics and Hypersonic Systems Lethality and Energetics

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2021-2022 Collaboration Report