#36 – ZeroAvia is Powering Sustainable Aviation with Hydrogen

Martin Eichenhofer is the CEO & co-founder of 9T Labs, a company that was spun out of ETH Zürich in Switzerland. 9T Labs specialises in providing software solutions and manufacturing equipment for producing high-quality and high-performance composite materials using 3D printing. By marrying the worlds of composite materials and 3D printing, 9T Labs is taking advantage of the superior material properties of composite materials and combining these with the geometric fidelity facilitated by 3D printing. As a result, components that were previously unfeasible to be manufactured using composite materials, either from a technical or cost perspective, are now within the realm of the possible. What is unique about 9T Labs is that the company combines their hardware for 3D printing composite parts with a bespoke optimisation software in order to maximise a component's performance, both in terms of structural design and manufacturing quality. Furthermore, it has been historically difficult to print continuous fibre composites at high quality with a low void content. 9T Labs, however, has patented a process that allows printing at a void content of below 1 percent, which competes with conventionally manufactured composites. So, in this episode of the Aerospace Engineering Podcast, Martin and I discuss: his background as an engineer and how his PhD research led to 9T Labs the challenges and benefits of 3D printing composite materials

Chris Voorhees is the founder and president of First Mode, a Seattle-based company that is designing and building technology for extreme environments off and on planet Earth. Chris has decades of experience in the implementation of robotic systems for the exploration of deep space. His notable experience includes his work as a mobility systems engineer for NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers and lead mechanical engineer for NASA's Curiosity rover. For his efforts, Chris received NASA's Exceptional Achievement and Exceptional Engineering Achievement medals. Today, Chris oversees the design, development, and deployment of engineered solutions for missions around the globe and throughout the solar system. First Mode is also focusing on significant problems on Earth including the challenging issues of sustainability for the natural resources sector. In this episode of the Aerospace Engineering Podcast, Chris and I talk about: his background in engineering, including his time at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory his past work on Mars rovers why we should go back to the Moon the space projects First Mode is currently involved with and First Mode’s growing engagement in the hydrogen sector If you want to learn more about the topics discussed in this episode, then you can find show notes with links to more in-depth material on the aerospace engineering blog. If you want to support the show then please leave a review; share it on social media with your friends and family; or support the podcast directly on Patreon. Thanks a lot for listening!

Carl Copeland is the founder of Möbius Aero, an electric air race team, and MμZ Motion, a developer of custom, high-performance electric motors. Carl has built various engineering teams and led innovation in the fields of IT, mechanical, magnetic, and electrical design. He has founded four companies and holds over 25 patents, and his most recent innovation, the Field Modulation Motion System, is a novel electric motor design that is significantly lighter and smaller than established electric motors of similar power and torque ratings. The Field Modulation Motion System achieves its high performance by using 18-phase field modulation rather than the three-phase modulation used in standard motors, essentially emulating six separate three-phase motors attached to a single shaft. Carl is putting his new engine design to the test in a new air racing series for electric aircraft known as Air Race E. In contrast to typical air racing series, in Air Race E aircraft race against each other on a course rather than flying isolated time trials. In the past, air races have been an invaluable means of developing aerospace technology in a competitive setting and Air Race E is re-awakening the spirit of competition by launching the first fully electric airplane race series. In this episode of the Aerospace Engineering Podcast, Carl and I talk about: his unique and auto-didactic background in engineering his goal of finding practical solutions to humanity's problems the Air Race E competition and the origin story of Carl’s racing team Möbius Aero the technical details and benefits of his new electric motor and the impact this has on airframe development If you want to learn more about the topics discussed in this episode, then you can find show notes with links to more in-depth material on the aerospace engineering blog. If you want to support the show then please leave a review; share it on social media with your friends and family; or support the podcast directly on Patreon. Thanks a lot for listening!

Dr Evangelos Zympeloudis is the CEO and co-founder of iCOMAT, a company based in the UK that is developing automated manufacturing equipment for tow-steered composite materials. Fibre-reinforced plastics, such as carbon-fibre or glass-fibre composites, hold great promise for high-performance and lightweight design due to their excellent stiffness and strength properties at low material density. Traditional fibre-reinforced plastics are manufactured using straight uni-directional fibres or with straight fibres woven into a fabric. Generally speaking, a fibre-reinforced composite derives its strength by aligning the fibres with the direction of the dominant load path. The novelty of tow-steered composites is that strips of composite material, so-called fibre tows, are steered along curvilinear paths such that the fibre direction is not straight, but varies continuously from point to point. This characteristic has benefits in structural design as the reinforcing fibres can now be used to smoothly tailor stiffness and strength throughout the structure. For example, tow-steered composites can be used to curve the reinforcing fibres around windows in an aircraft fuselage in order to improve strength and facilitate net-shape manufacturing. In this episode of the Aerospace Engineering Podcast, Evangelos and I talk about: his background as an engineer and entrepreneur the manufacturing challenge of making defect-free tow-steered composites the capabilities of iCOMAT’s rapid tow-shearing process the benefits of tow-steering for manufacturing cost and design and some of the projects iCOMAT is currently working on If you want to learn more about the topics discussed in this episode, then you can find show notes with links to more in-depth material on the aerospace engineering blog. If you want to support the show then please leave a review; share it on social media with your friends and family; or support the podcast directly on Patreon. Thanks a lot for listening! Disclosure: I currently work with iCOMAT on a number of projects and am a consultant to the company.

Stefan Brieschenk is the Chief Operating Officer of Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), a company in the south of Germany that is developing a low-cost launch vehicle. RFA’s vision is to drastically reduce the cost of access to space through large-scale industrialisation of their operations and manufacturing. Key to RFA's design approach is a holistic performance and cost optimisation tool that has been developed in collaboration with space industry veterans MT Aerospace and OHB. This approach has led to interesting design choices. For example, the second stage tank is based on inexpensive stainless steel construction, and in places where composite materials are being used, RFA is relying on automotive grade materials that have already been used in high-volume production. In their propulsive system, however, RFA is chasing the highest performance—a closed-cycle staged combustion engine, enabled by modern manufacturing capabilities in 3D printing and which is due to be hot-fired early next year. In this episode of the Aerospace Engineering podcast, Stefan and I talk about: Stefan’s passion for rocketry and hypersonic flight his background at Rocket Lab and MT Aerospace the gap between the European and US space sectors RFA’s launch vehicle and design approach and Stefan’s vision for the European space sector If you want to learn more about the topics discussed in this episode, then you can find show notes with links to more in-depth material on the aerospace engineering blog. If you want to support the show then please leave a review; share it on social media with your friends and family; or support the podcast directly on Patreon. Thanks a lot for listening!