Rahul Rughani, Ph.D. Email & Phone Number

Los Angeles Metropolitan Area

Lead Systems Engineer for Arkisys, overseeing the development of the first Port Module for launch to LEO.

Los Angeles Metropolitan Area

Developed the initial Port Module prototype system for Arkisys by taking a holistic approach to spacecraft bus design. Performed trade studies for Mechanical, Thermal, Orbital Dynamics, and payload reconfiguration optimization to arrive at the first functional prototype Port Module built to full scale

Greater Los Angeles Area

Systems engineer overseeing a group of graduate and undergraduate students to design and build a 1U cubesat for launch in 2020, measuring and characterizing the Earth's magnetic field from low earth orbit. Sizing of power requirements, testing of hardware, and integration of systems into the cubesat vehicle.

Los Angeles, California, United States

As the lead RF engineer for the USC Satellite Communications Ground Station, I am in charge of configuring and maintaining radio equipment for communications with spacecraft, including future and present CubeSats at USC, and for training students in the ASTE-566 hands-on lab course. https://www.isi.edu/centers/serc/satellite_ground_communicationsThe ground station consists of two antennas, a 4.5m S-Band mesh dish, and a 2.5m UHF/VHF yagii pair, with upgrades underway to allow for L- and… Show more As the lead RF engineer for the USC Satellite Communications Ground Station, I am in charge of configuring and maintaining radio equipment for communications with spacecraft, including future and present CubeSats at USC, and for training students in the ASTE-566 hands-on lab course. https://www.isi.edu/centers/serc/satellite_ground_communicationsThe ground station consists of two antennas, a 4.5m S-Band mesh dish, and a 2.5m UHF/VHF yagii pair, with upgrades underway to allow for L- and C- bands on the 4.5m dish Show less

Greater Los Angeles Area

The Consortium for Execution of Rendezvous and Servicing Operations (CONFERS) is an industry-led initiative with initial seed funding provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that aims to leverage best practices from government and industry to provide the foundation for a new commercial repertoire of robust space-based capabilities and a future in-space economy.From September 2017 – October 2019 the USC Space Engineering Research Center was contracted to perform… Show more The Consortium for Execution of Rendezvous and Servicing Operations (CONFERS) is an industry-led initiative with initial seed funding provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that aims to leverage best practices from government and industry to provide the foundation for a new commercial repertoire of robust space-based capabilities and a future in-space economy.From September 2017 – October 2019 the USC Space Engineering Research Center was contracted to perform fundamental research towards the past, present, and future state of the RPO and OOS industries, as well as provide technical details to form the foundation of any future standards or regulations for RPO and OOS. Throughout the course of this research, I analyzed all publicly available data on past RPO and docking missions in Earth orbit and Cis-Lunar space. Using this data, I created a set of unitless metrics to define safety criteria for spacecraft of any shape and size, so as not to restrict the future of spacecraft RPO and OOS to large monolithic spacecraft. The results from these two years of research were presented at the International Astronautical Congress and the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety conferences.As part of the first year initiative for the CONFERS project, The technical team at USC surveyed all previous published rendezvous and proximity operations past missions in both public and private sector settings (manned and unmanned), and created a database of flight identified methodologies, with the goal of finding commonalities between the missions to create safe guidelines for future RPO operations. Evaluation of initial characteristics of a planned rendezvous yielded a safety posture that focused on two major areas, contact actions and remote influence/interference. One of these metrics considered the act of remote influence from a Servicing spacecraft onto a Client spacecraft, in the form of a thruster plume impingement. Show less

Greater Los Angeles Area

Systems engineer leading a group of graduate and undergraduate students to design and build a 3U cubesat, providing a platform for our commercial partner to launch their payload to low earth orbit. Sizing of power requirements, testing of hardware, and integration of systems into the cubesat vehicle.

Greater Los Angeles Area

Perform design and analysis for liquid rocket engines to ensure all systems will perform optimally during test runs, ensuring that the final product will reach peak performance. I oversee a group of a dozen or so members working collectively to achieve this goal. We use CFD and Thermal Flow analysis, along with FEA and Matlab simulations to achieve this. Currently we are working on a LOX/IPA regeneratively cooled engine, to be mounted on a launch vehicle with our partners at the Kyushu… Show more Perform design and analysis for liquid rocket engines to ensure all systems will perform optimally during test runs, ensuring that the final product will reach peak performance. I oversee a group of a dozen or so members working collectively to achieve this goal. We use CFD and Thermal Flow analysis, along with FEA and Matlab simulations to achieve this. Currently we are working on a LOX/IPA regeneratively cooled engine, to be mounted on a launch vehicle with our partners at the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan. Show less

Greater Los Angeles Area

Performing CFD and Thermal flow analysis for a student run design team. LPL designs, manufactures, and tests liquid propulsion rocket engines designed by USC students. We are currently working on a LOX/IPA regeneratively cooled engine. My focus is to perform computational analyses in order to perform an iterative design process without making physical prototypes of each iteration.

Greater Los Angeles Area

Design of a 12U cubesat by a group of undergraduate and graduate students, led by myself, with the objective of aiding a satellite servicing mission in geostationary orbit. The 12U cubesat, titled Theia for the Greek goddess of sight and heavenly light, was designed to be attached to a servicing robot, and to be sent ahead to scout the damaged satellite using Radar, LADAR, and optical imagery. It is designed to be self propelled, using monopropellant hydrazine as its propellant, with a backup… Show more Design of a 12U cubesat by a group of undergraduate and graduate students, led by myself, with the objective of aiding a satellite servicing mission in geostationary orbit. The 12U cubesat, titled Theia for the Greek goddess of sight and heavenly light, was designed to be attached to a servicing robot, and to be sent ahead to scout the damaged satellite using Radar, LADAR, and optical imagery. It is designed to be self propelled, using monopropellant hydrazine as its propellant, with a backup Ion Electrospray thruster. The design and analysis was performed over 3 months during the summer of 2016 in collaboration with Palski & Associates, who funded the design study.Design and development of a 3U cubesat by a team of graduate students and professors, supported by a group of external advisors. The purpose of this mission is to send the satellite to low earth orbit, deploy a payload, and perform scientific measurements. My function for this mission is to determine our power requirements and subsequently find components to suit these requirements, as well as to determine what payloads we can send without depleteing the batteries in eclipse. In order to do this I have created a Matlab simulation to analyze all power inputs and outputs, using additional data gathered from STK simulations. Show less

Mcgill University

The McGill Baja Racing Team is a student-run engineering design team at McGill University that competes in the Collegiate SAE Mini Baja competition. The vehicle is a single-seat offroad vehicle, powered by a 10hp Briggs and Stratton engine. There are 3 competitions held each year across the United States which we compete in. We placed first overall (out of 140 teams) in the 2013 Rochester, NY competition, as well as numerous top 10 finishes in the past 5 years.For the McGill Baja Racing… Show more The McGill Baja Racing Team is a student-run engineering design team at McGill University that competes in the Collegiate SAE Mini Baja competition. The vehicle is a single-seat offroad vehicle, powered by a 10hp Briggs and Stratton engine. There are 3 competitions held each year across the United States which we compete in. We placed first overall (out of 140 teams) in the 2013 Rochester, NY competition, as well as numerous top 10 finishes in the past 5 years.For the McGill Baja Racing Team, I led a group working the on creating an improved aerodynamic shape for the vehicle, in order to reduce the drag on the vehicle. We worked on reducing flow separation behind the vehicle, primarily using CFD analysis techniques, as well as scale model wind tunnel testing using 3D printed models. We were able to create and manufacture carbon fiber panels to place on the car that reduce the air drag on the vehicle by 25%. Show less

Montreal, Canada Area

Assembly of plastic debris chutes and creation of custom orders for clients

Verdun, Qc

Analysis of online search results and mainframe program output.Implementation of SQL database filtering as well as the use of Access database forms to facilitateanalysis and querying of data.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Astronautical Engineering

I have recently completed my PhD in Astronautical Engineering, focusing my research on enabling in-orbit manufacturing, satellite.

Master’S Degree, Aerospace, Aeronautical And Astronautical/Space Engineering, 4.0 Gpa

Activities and Societies: Ad Astra Society, Liquid Propulsion Lab (LPL) I pursued a Master of Science degree at USC in Astronautical.

Bachelor Of Engineering (B.Eng.), Mechanical Engineering, 3.42 Gpa

Activities and Societies: I was a member of the McGill Baja Racing Team for the duration of my degree program at McGill (4 years). I.