About this role
Plasma blackout is the inability to communicate through a layer of kinetically ionized gas (or plasma) that engulfs a vehicle as it descends through an atmosphere at hypersonic speeds. Since the 1950s, NASA has tolerated this problem for bluntly shaped space capsules. When Curiosity and Perseverance landed on Mars, public attention was drawn to the "Seven Minutes of Terror" -- the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) phase of the mission. The High Altitude Re-entry Plasma Emulation Experiment (HARPEE) facility was recently constructed to investigate techniques for mitigating radio-frequency (RF) blackout.
Experimental activities will focus on characterizing plasma properties (including charge-carrier density and thermal energy) of the HARPEE apparatus under a variety of transient power and vacuum-chamber pressure conditions. Instrumentation control and data acquisition will be implemented using a scripting language such as MATLAB or Python. The work will include a comparison of a traditional plasma characterization method (Langmuir probing) with a novel RF remote-sensing technique.
Individuals with a demonstrated passion for scientific investigation and enthusiasm for learning laboratory techniques are encouraged to apply.
**Eligible Applicants:** Student
**Academic Level:** Graduate Master's, Graduate Doctoral, Post Doctoral
**Activity Type:** In-person
**Citizenship:** US Citizen Only
**Type:** Internships