Space-themed Zoomposium 3: 30 June 2022
Published: 10 June 2022
Dr Gilles BAILET: ‘Patents in space engineering, from opportunity opening new possibilities to a strategic necessity to protect our industries’ Dr Sargam MULAY: ‘Heating of plasma during solar flares’ Dr Mark SYMES: ‘Plenty of Space in Chemistry?’
Watch Space-themed Zoomposium 3 (Passcode: 5*S2U!1K)
Speakers:
Dr Gilles Bailet, James Watt School of Engineering
‘Patents in space engineering, from opportunity opening new possibilities to a strategic necessity to protect our industries’
I arrived at the University of Glasgow in December 2019 to research In-Space Manufacturing technologies after 9 years in the field of CubeSats and Space Exploration.
I quickly discovered that this new field was dominated by American companies attempting a patent-enabled monopoly in this field expected to represent over $7,5 billions per year by 2030. Since then, I’ve pursued development of radically different patentable technologies to allow UK and the rest of Europe to operate in the field of In-Space Manufacturing.
I would like to engage with researchers who would require manufacturing in extreme environments including use on Earth for on-site self-sufficient infrastructures.
Dr Sargam Mulay, School of Physics & Astronomy
‘Heating of plasma during solar flares’
Solar flares are sudden bursts observed in the solar atmosphere. During flares, the plasma is heated to a very high temperature (10 Million Kelvin) and shows emission at UV and X-ray wavelengths. My research is focused on understanding plasma heating and turbulence using UV spectroscopic and imaging observations from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) satellite.
My research interest includes observational X-ray and UV spectroscopy, solar radiophysics, reconnection in solar flares, and coronal heating. I would be interested in developing collaborations with people working in the field of plasma physics and modeling/simulation.
Dr Mark Symes, School of Chemistry
‘Plenty of Space in Chemistry?’
I am an electrochemist, meaning that I spend my time finding ways to power chemical reactions with electricity. Recently, my research group have begun to explore how electrochemistry might play a key role in human exploration of the solar system. Electrochemistry is ideal for these purposes, as it is generally easy to scale, it can be used to convert resources found in situ and it can be designed to produce no waste. For example, we will discuss the electrochemical generation of oxygen from moonrock and investigations of oxygen production by electrolysis of water under lunar and Martian gravity. We'd be very interested to talk to anyone with facilities for, or interests in, powering chemical reactions in space or on other worlds (e.g. carbon dioxide capture/reduction, closed chemical systems, oxygen production, making building materials on other planets, etc).
First published: 10 June 2022