Space is a precarious setting of excessive vacuum — that’s, extraordinarily low stress — together with excessive temperatures and blasts of various radiation publicity. Creating spacecraft that may stand up to drastic temperature variations starting from a whole bunch of levels under freezing to blistering warmth, coupled with ultraviolet radiation, ionizing radiation and cosmic rays, is a formidable problem.
Within this setting, spacecraft accumulate electrical prices that may destroy expensive, vital gear, endanger astronauts and abruptly finish a mission. Case in level: The famed Apollo 13 mission narrowly escaped catastrophe when excessive heating resulting from {an electrical} arc in an oxygen tank ignited the Teflon insulation and brought about an explosion.
“It’s a delicate balancing act to determine the right materials for building a satellite or spacecraft that will transport humans,” says Utah State University physicist Tyler Heggenes. “NASA is intensely concerned about charging because some equipment on spacecraft are going to be really strong insulators, so the charge will enter them and wlll stay, essentially, completely still.”
In that scenario, Heggenes says, if a cost builds up that’s too massive for an insulator to carry, a discharge arc, which is a robust electrical present, can happen.
“An electrical current like this could fry computer chips or worse — it could be really bad news,” he says, citing NASA’s Galaxy 15 telecommunications satellite tv for pc that was set adrift from orbit in April 2010, following a suspected arc.
With physics college mentor J.R. Dennison, Heggenes is refining methods to measure conductivity in different insulating supplies in response to punishing and unpredictable radiation publicity, with the purpose of growing a mannequin for sustaining electrostatic equilibrium inside these supplies.
The doctoral scholar was awarded a 2025 NASA Science and Technology Graduate Research Fellowship to pursue continued examine. The aggressive, four-year fellowship pairs Heggenes with a NASA mentor, who will organize for the USU pupil to go to different NASA labs and conduct analysis with NASA professionals. In addition, the fellowship supplies about $80,000 in funding annually, includng a $40,000 stipend, together with full tuition, medical insurance and an allowance for working bills and journey to skilled conferences.
“This is one of NASA’s premier fellowships, which are designed to provide a pathway for students to pursue research career opportuinities within the agency,” says Dennison, professor in USU’s Department of Physics, who has mentored earlier fellowship recipients. “That NASA has kept this fellowship going despite federal budget cuts is a testament to the agency’s commitment to this student program.”
A local of Washington state’s rural Whidbey Island, Heggenes says he’s at all times been fascinated by house and science, and initially deliberate to pursue a profession as an orthopedic surgeon.
“I volunteered in hospitals across multiple states, spent hundreds of hours shadowing physicians and earned emergency medical technician certifications,” says the 2023 graduate of California’s Concordia University Irvine. “My medical goals were within grasp before I was led to a revelation by one of the surgeons I shadowed: All my leisure time within an educational context was strictly related to space and physics.”
The epiphany led Heggenes to rethink his profession path.
“I realized I wanted and needed more than just research for the sake of learning, but also to help expand humanity’s reach in space,” he says.
Heggenes realized of Dennison’s Materials Physics Group and its analysis of house setting results and spacecraft charging. He utilized to USU and, on his preliminary go to to the Logan campus, spent greater than two hours speaking with Dennison.
“Working with Dr. Dennison’s group has opened many doors for me, including NASA-funded projects,” he says. “This includes the important, and often over-looked, topic of radiation-induced conductivity, also known as ‘RIC.’”
Heggenes notes John Fowler (1925-2016), a pioneer in RIC analysis, adopted an instructional path that was a mirror picture of his personal.
“As a physicist, Fowler conducted seminal research on the effects of radiation on conductivity, but left physics to pursue a medical degree and dedicate the rest of his career to the field of medical radiation,” he says. “Fowler demonstrated the interconnection of RIC to a deeper understanding of physical phenomena as a whole and how this concept is relevant to space technology.”
Heggenes says he doesn’t wish to exaggerate the potential affect of his proposed research on RIC analysis, however he factors out most spacecraft anomalies outcome from spacecraft charging points.
“I’m inspired by Fowler’s example and how he was open to pivoting to a new field,” he says. “I’m grateful for my winding route through medicine, carpentry, EMT work, construction jobs and sports, which has broadened my perspectives and experiences.”
Heggenes says he envisions growing strategies to supply low-noise, quick time-interval information of RIC with time-dependent “fits” — that’s, adjustable equations — to noticeably complement spacecraft charging fashions.
“It’s a meaningful contribution I can make to help fellow humans safely and effectively explore the universe,” he says.