Funding from the NASA Connecticut Space Grant Consortium Revolves Around Earth, Moon, and Mars Research

Five faculty members have received generous grants from the NASA Connecticut Space Grant Consortium (CTSGC) to support their work on several cutting-edge research projects. The CTSGC Is a statewide higher-education grant, internship, and scholarship program funded as a part of NASA Education.

Omar Faruk Emon, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received a grant to fund his work on a 3D printing solution for fabricating polymer-based flexible sensors that can be used to measure strain, pressure, and temperature in the hostile environment of outer space. Because existing 3D printers often do not support functional polymers for printing electronics such as sensors, Dr. Emon was inspired to create a new printing system that would work with his polymer material. Successful 3D printing of polymer-based flexible sensors would not only create a new way to fabricate, adjust, and repair electronics, but it could also do it on demand, when it’s needed and where it’s needed. In other words, hundreds of miles above the Earth.

Dr. Emon will collaborate with two or three students on the project who, afterward, will present their research and engage in some major networking at the NASA CTSGC Grants Expo.

Goli Nossoni, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Dan May, professor of environmental science, received a faculty research grant for their project, “Moonglomerete for Construction on the Moon,” which centers on developing a new material for the manufacture of bricks. Moonglomerete would be much lighter than concrete. In fact, it would be made from the moon rocks that punctuate the lunar landscape. Larger and lighter-colored moon rocks — anorthosite — would be embedded in a binder made from smaller and darker-colored molten rock — basalt — to make the bricks. The grant also allows two undergraduate students to join Dr. Nossoni’s and Dr. May’s research efforts and explore the manufacture of out-of-this-world building blocks for the 21st century and beyond.

Mars has its own contributions to make, and Kristine Horvat, assistant professor of chemical engineering, is determined to access them. Her grant will help fund her research on the red planet’s degree of hospitality to human life. As a good host, Mars would owe its guests certain amenities — oxygen and fuel, for starters. So Dr. Horvat is exploring how growing Chlorella algae under various pressure levels, temperatures, and gas-phase composition conditions — conditions that may exist on Mars — will affect its oxygen production and algae growth rates as well as its ability to produce oil for fuel under varying conditions. A very fortunate undergraduate student will participate in this project as a mentored research assistant — a résumé blockbuster for an undergrad.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, Chong Qiu, associate professor of chemistry and chemical engineering, is applying his grant to exploring the application of ground ozone monitors and high-altitude balloons in detecting ozone in Earth’s lower and upper atmospheres. Dr. Qiu is already prepping for two upcoming eclipses — a solar eclipse in October 2023 and a total eclipse in April 2024 — to gauge how the reduction of solar radiation will affect ozone levels. He plans to assemble a high-altitude balloon team as part of the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project and take field measurements in the upper and lower atmospheres as the eclipses are happening. Dr. Qiu admits to being somewhat in the dark about ballooning — describing himself as a beginner — but he’s excited about the learning curve ahead of him and collaborating with his students and colleagues at the University of Bridgeport. The learning experience for the students will be intense and extremely hands on — they will design the payload, assemble the balloon, and conduct test launches in the field.

This story appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of TCoE Trends, the official newsletter of the Tagliatela College of Engineering. Click here to read more from TCoE Trends.