People: Astrobiology Faculty

Adam Bruckner
Professor and Chair
Aeronautics and Astronautics

211E Guggenheim Hall
University of Washington Box 352400
bruckner@aa.washington.edu
Phone: (206) 543-6143

Research Activities

Professor Bruckner's research has encompassed hypervelocity accelerators, planetary in situ resource utilization, space propulsion, space power systems, energy conversion, and laser applications in biology and medicine. He has published more than 175 papers and reports on these topics. He is a co-inventor of the ram accelerator, a chemically propelled ramjet-in-tube hypervelocity projectile launcher, and is also co-inventor of the liquid droplet heat exchanger, a promising approach to thermal management in space power systems which has found near-term application in the development of chemical oxygen-iodine lasers for missile defense. In addition, Professor Bruckner has worked on the development of enabling technologies and architectures for manned and unmanned Mars missions based on in situ resource utilization. His particular interest in this area is the extraction of water from the Martian atmosphere and regolith for the production of rocket propellants and life-support consumables. His current research is focused on developing the ram accelerator as a hypersonic research tool and on the understanding of water adsorption and desorption processes in the Martian regolith. Professor Bruckner has five U.S. patents in the areas of ram accelerators, launch vehicles, and heat exchangers. He has been a member of the UW's Astrobiology Program since its inception in 1997.

Please visit Professor Bruckner's website.

Relevant Publications

Wood, S. E., Schneider, M. A., Cardell, G., Hecht, M., Knowlen, C., Bruckner, A.P., Catling, D. C., Cobos, D., and Zent, A., "Characterization and Calibration of the Phoenix TECP Relative Humidity Sensor in a Mars Atmospheric Simulation Chamber," Fourth International Conference on Mars Polar Science and Exploration, Davos, Switzerland, Oct. 2-6, 2006.

Schneider, M.A., and Bruckner, A.P., "Extraction of Water from the Martian Atmosphere," Space Technology & Applications International Forum – STAIF-2003, Albuquerque, NM, Feb. 2-5, 2003, M.S. El-Genk, ed., American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings, Volume 654, pp. 1124-1132.

Polkko, J., Harri, A-M., Lehto, A., Tillman, J., Bruckner, A.P., and Siili T., "Digihum: Humidity Transmitter for Harsh Martian Environment, Construction and Performance Assessment," Poster PS037, XXVII General Assembly of the European Geophysical Society, Nice, France, April 21-26, 2002.