Mechanics Applied to Aerospace Engineering
Second year, first semester BSc in Aerospace Engineering. 6 ECTS.
Mario Merino
I am an associate professor at the Aerospace Engineering department of UC3M working on the design, modeling, simulation, and testing of space plasma thrusters as part of the EP2 research group. My goal is to develop new technologies that enable efficient and cheap electric space propulsion.
About me
Hi! I am a young associate professor in aerospace engineer at UC3M who wants to learn more about how things work and use that knowledge to create new, revolutionary propulsion technologies—and, along the way, teach and share my passion with others.
My research interests are the physics of magnetized and unmagnetized plasmas, and new electric propulsion concepts such as magnetic nozzles, helicon plasma thrusters, and electron-cyclotron resonance plasma thrusters. As part of the Plasmas and Space Propulsion Team, I work on multi-fluid and kinetic plasma models, electromagnetic finite-difference and finite-element codes. I am also into the design and characterization of novel electrodeless plasma thrusters, as the PI of the ERC-ZARATHUSTRA research project.
In the last 10 years, I have taught various BSc and MSc Aerospace Engineering courses at UPM and UC3M, an activity that I find extremely rewarding. Presently, I teach courses on advanced space propulsion, astrodynamics and space systems, and classical mechanics. I am also co-author of the edX course "The Conquest of Space: space exploration and rocket science,".
Outside of work, I enjoy traveling, hiking, reading about maths and physics, learning languages, and tinkering with computers. I am also part of Celera Community, and co-founder of the Spanish NGO "La Facultad Invisible," which seeks to improve university-level education. In case you want to know more about me, click below to see my full curriculum:
Research
I research electric propulsion systems and plasma physics as part of the Equipo de Propulsión Espacial y Plasmas (EP2), Spain's reference research group on the modeling and numerical simulation of different types of plasma thrusters. My work in this field has received several awards. Our research group works together with other international research entities (such as UPM, MIT, ONERA, CNRS, LANL) and industrial companies (e.g. SENER, Airbus Defense and Space). Our work is funded mainly by the European Research Council (Starting Grant program), the European Commission (FP7 and H2020 programs), ESA, the Spanish R&D program, the Community of Madrid, and the AFRL-EOARD, through several research projects. You can find out more in our group's website:
ERC Starting Grant ZARATHUSTRA
I have recently been awarded with a Starting Grant from the European Research Council to lead the project ZARATHUSTRA: Revolutionizing advanced electrodeless plasma thrusters for space transportation. Project ZARATHUSTRA has the following overarching goal:
To unravel the physical underpinnings of electrodeless plasma thrusters (EPTs) and revolutionize their design.
As part of this activity, starting 2021 I will hire 6 researchers at PhD and Postdoc level in the following 5 years, to explore new areas of electric propulsion and bring into the field the knowledge from other fields such as microwave engineering and data-driven analysis based on nonlinear systems. You can learn more about ZARATHUSTRA on the project website.
Student internship opportunities
I have advised 2 PhD thesis and I am currently advising 5 more; and many BSc and MSc theses. Excellent students are always welcome in our group, and many have already worked with us in the past developing new models and codes, or in the lab. Whether you are looking for an Erasmus+ research internship, to do your BSc/MSc thesis, or to carry out a PhD thesis in the field of electric propulsion, feel free to contact me to explore current opportunities. While less frequently, postdoc positions may also be available.
What are we looking for? an outstanding academic record and a solid background in calculus, linear algebra, plasma physics, analytical mechanics, fluid dynamics, electromagnetism, scientific programming and numerical analysis. Some of this knowledge can be acquired as you work in our group. For experimental work, experience in a research laboratory is desirable. Students should be able to work autonomously and in a team, and have strong analytical, critical and creative capabilities. International students are particularly welcome!
Publications
Below you can find and download an updated list of my recent and selected publications. If you are planning to cite the work of our group, please use the following BibTEX file to ensure all references are formatted correctly.
Peer-reviewed publications and Conference papers
Please refer to my full CV for a list of journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers.
Patents
- "Sistema sin partes móviles ni electrodos y procedimiento para vectorizar el empuje en motores espaciales de plasma", Spanish Patent Office, PCT patent ES2540167 (2013) [LINK]
- "Motor espacial de plasma sin electrodos con geometría en U", Spanish Patent Office, PCT patent ES2733773 (2019) [LINK]
Code
I am currently in the process of publishing some of my numerical codes as open source for the whole research community to use freely. I believe this is also a great way to make research FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable. You can find them on Zenodo and in my GitHub profile:
Teaching
Aerospace Engineering courses
I currently impart the following courses at UC3M as part of the BSc and MSc programs in Aerospace Engineering, and the new Master in Space Engineering. In the past I also taught other courses, which you can find in my cv. All courses are fully taught in English:
Space Vehicles and Orbital Mechanics
Fourth year, second semester BSc in Aerospace Engineering. 6 ECTS.
Advanced Space Propulsion
Elective course, MSc in Space Engineering. 3 ECTS.
Online courses
As a collective effort with other young aerospace engineering professors and PhD students, I have co-authored an EdX Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled "The conquest of Space: Space Exploration and Rocket Science." This 7-week course introduces several technical topics of aerospace engineering, from orbital mechanics to the principles of chemical rocket operation, space systems, and electric propulsion, and simultaneously walks you through the major chapters of the History of the conquest of space—what is now being called the beginnings of the "Space Age." The course presentation video can be watched here:
Also, I am in the process of creating online video tutorials for some of the official aerospace engineering courses that I am teaching. If you are curious on what I am working on, you can check out my latest videos on my Youtube profile.
Past courses and seminars
Besides the courses described above, in the past I have also tought the following:
- Learning scientific computing with Julia: short introductory seminar to Julia, Madrid week of Science 2020.
- Modeling in Aerospace Engineering: Second year, second semester BSc Aerospace Engineering (UC3M). 6 ECTS. In English.
- Space Systems Design: First year, second semester MSc Aeronautical Engineering (UC3M). 6 ECTS. In English.
- Astrodynamics and Atmospheric Flight Dynamics: First year, first semester MSc Aeronautical Engineering (UC3M). 6 ECTS. In English.
- Rocket Motors: Fourth year, second semester BSc Aerospace Engineering (UC3M). 3 ECTS. In English.
- Aerospace Propulsion Complements : Fourth year, first semester BSc Aerospace Engineering (UC3M). 3 ECTS. In English.
- Space Systems: Fourth year, first semester BSc Aerospace Engineering (UC3M). 6 ECTS. In English.
- Aerospace Propulsion: Third year, first semester BSc Aerospace Engineering (UC3M). 6 ECTS. In English.
- Mathematics I: First year, first semester BSc Aerospace Engineering (UPM). 9 ECTS. In Spanish.
You can still download a small Matlab program that I created to visualize conics and quadrics for one unit of the course. - Computer Programming: First year BSc Aerospace Engineering (UPM). 6 ECTS. In Spanish.
You can still download the class slides . - Introduction to LATEX and LYX: a 2-hour crash-course on how to typeset beautiful documents in LATEX and use the LYX editor. Editions: 2014, 2015.
- Introduction to Fortran: a 4-hour crash-course on Fortran programming (in Spanish). Editions: 2011
Contact
-
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Avenida de la Universidad 30
28911 Leganés (Madrid) Spain
Office: 7.3.H.06. View map - +34 91 624 8237
- mario.merino@uc3m.es
- @mmerinomartinez
