Phil Bracken
Photo Credit: Rensselaer/Mark McCarty

Troy, N.Y. — It’s not every day that you meet someone who builds next-generation rocket engines — from scratch — for fun.

But Phil Bracken, who will graduate this month from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a major in aeronautical engineering and a clear goal of becoming an astronaut, is doing exactly that.

The engine project, along with securing a prestigious NASA internship last year, are two key factors that helped Bracken land a job with leading aerospace firm Orbital Sciences Corp. Soon after graduation, Bracken will begin his new career as a propulsion engineer with the Dulles, Va.-based company.

Bracken’s first task at Orbital will be to expand the work he started at Rensselaer, and further develop a next-generation, liquid first-stage rocket engine. The engine, which runs on liquid kerosene and oxygen instead of conventional solid propellants, is slated for use on the new Taurus II launch vehicle which is expected to carry its first payload into space in 2010. 

“It’s an amazing opportunity, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it,” Bracken said. “There’s something fundamentally fascinating about the fact that we take an object that doesn’t look like it should be able to fly, and put it up in the air.” 

Bracken has spent most of his time at Rensselaer, and much of his time growing in Cambridge, N.Y., thinking about the sky. Bracken and his older brother — who is also a Rensselaer School of Engineering graduate and currently working near Dulles in the aerospace industry — spent their early days building, testing, and flying different model aircraft, rockets, gliders, and eventually radio-controlled airplanes.

This passion prompted Bracken as a junior to resurrect Rensselaer’s Design/Build/Fly team. The club, which has since been handed over to a younger leadership and is still going strong, develops and creates new 5-foot wingspan aircrafts to compete against teams from other universities. The rules and design specifications change every year, requiring the team to start from scratch. 

“Prior to Design/Build/Fly, there were no hands-on activities for aerospace students,” Bracken said. “Now we receive a lot of support from the aerospace faculty, and a wider, more diverse student membership, which is important because there’s so much to do, and it’s all multidisciplinary.” 

Two years ago, Bracken was set on a future in designing jets and airplanes. But after spending the summer of 2007 as an intern at NASA’s Goddard Academy in Greenbelt, Md., one of four academies run by the space agency, he has been enthralled with rockets, shuttles, and spacecraft. 

One of only 18 interns accepted by NASA, Bracken spent most of his time working with NASA researcher Erik Silk to develop a more efficient spray cooling and heat transfer system for use in satellites and possibly space shuttles. As a group, the Goddard Academy interns collaborated to design a space mission that would allow NASA to send a craft to Venus, collect samples, and return to Earth. 

The highlights of the NASA internship, Bracken said, were a front-row seat to watch the June 8, 2007 launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, as well as VIP tours of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

Along with being a rocket scientist, Bracken is a multi-instrumentalist with a love of music. He’s a rock climber, was captain of his high school football team, and a self-described “Jack of all trades.”  

Despite the success that Bracken and his classmates have achieved with building a rocket engine for their senior project, he humbly admits that the first incarnation of the rocket was a flop. But the process of designing and building a dud, Bracken stresses, also has its benefits. 

“If it had worked the first time, we wouldn’t have learned as much,” he said.

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