Senior Phillip Bracken works on his closed-loop cooling system in a lab at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., as part of a 10-week summer internship with the space agency.

Troy, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student Phillip Bracken scored a front-row seat June 8 to watch the space shuttle Atlantis take off and embark on its 11-day mission.

Bracken, a senior aeronautical engineering major, also partook in VIP tours of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Kennedy Space Center. These memorable experiences were unexpected perks, he said, of his summer internship at the NASA Academy at Goddard.

“It’s been absolutely fantastic,” said Bracken, 21, a native of Cambridge, N.Y. “I knew the Academy would be different from other summer internships, but I didn’t realize the scope to which it would be different. It is much more like an intense college experience than a summer job.”

He is one of only 18 college students from across the nation to be accepted into a summer internship program at NASA’s Goddard Academy, one of four academies run by the space agency. Along with giving students a chance to perform hands-on research and tackle key challenges facing the future of space flight, these programs aim to identify and train the next generation of NASA leaders.

Bracken arrived at the Goddard Academy, which is on-site at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on June 4. The internship runs through Aug. 12.

The majority of his time is spent working on a project under NASA researcher Erik Silk to develop a more efficient spray cooling and heat transfer system for electronic components.

In space, without the luxury of air, it is critical to keep computer processors on shuttles and satellites properly cooled. NASA has developed a method of spray cooling that douses electronics with a fluid coolant, which absorbs most of the heat and is discarded. Bracken is working to optimize a closed loop method that follows the same basic principles, but instead of getting ejected, the coolant would be recollected, cooled down, and then reused.

Along with attending lectures and working on his own research, Bracken and the other Goddard interns are collaborating on a group project to design a space mission that would allow NASA to send a craft to Venus, collect samples, and return to Earth.

Whether or not these projects are ever realized depends greatly on the interns themselves. If Bracken’s solo project or the group collaboration produces strong enough results, it will likely catch the attention of senior NASA officials, he said.

Bracken will receive four credits from the University of Maryland for his efforts. He expects to serve as co-author on least two research reports — which is rare for an undergraduate — before the internship program concludes in August.

It’s no surprise Bracken chose to spend his summer thinking about space, considering he’s spent much of his time at Rensselaer contemplating the sky. Along with leading the Rensselaer Design/Build/Fly student organization, he is also a member of the Sigma Gamma Tau Aerospace Honor Society and Rensselaer Remote Control Flying Club.

In the lab, he contributed to Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering Associate Professor Leik Myrabo’s research into beamed energy propulsion. Bracken also contributed to Assistant Professor Michael Amitay’s work on applying flow control to remote control aircraft via synthetic jets.

Bracken said he’s seriously considering NASA as a future employer, but after graduating next spring he plans to enter a graduate or doctorate program to study space operations or aeronautical engineering.

After returning to campus in the fall, Bracken said he plans to tap his experience at Goddard to help energize Rensselaer students and faculty about space and initiate a space-themed design challenge or competition.

Contact: Michael Mullaney
Phone: (518) 276-6161
E-mail: mullam@rpi.edu