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Rafid Bendimerad رَفِــــــيد بـَــن دِي مَــــــرَّاد

PhD Candidate - Aerospace Engineering

About Me

Salam/Hello!

I am Rafid Bendimerad, a PhD candidate in Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University. I am passionate about space exploration and about using artificial intelligence to solve scientific and engineering problems. The goal of my research is to advance space electric propulsion to enable future space missions that are unachievable with current propulsion systems. I do this through modeling, numerical simulations, and machine learning.

The main focus of my research is on Electrospray thrusters. These are composed of tiny emitters that can only deliver a minuscule amount of force—not enough to move the spacecraft even a little. However, if you take thousands of them, put them together in a compact manner, you can achieve sufficient force to push the spacecraft with very high efficiency. Electrospray thrusters are meant to be used for the LISA mission in 2035.

In addition to my work on Electrospray thrusters, I also worked on On-Orbit Refueling. This is a futuristic project that aims to study the placement of refueling stations in space so that, instead of terminating the mission because of fuel depletion, spacecraft can go refuel and continue their main mission.

Besides my research, I like sharing scientific content on my YouTube channel.

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Interests

Space Propulsion
Space Mission Design and Analysis
Artificial Intelligence for Science

Education

PhD Candidate in Aerospace Engineering -with a double minor in Astronomy and Computer Science-,
Cornell University, USA.
M.Sc. in Fluid Mechanics,
Ecole Polytechnique, France.
B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering,
Ecole Nationale Polytechnique, Algeria.

📚 My Research

As a PhD candidate in Aerosapce Engineering, I am part of the ASTRA Lab; a lab that focuses on space electric propulsion directed by Prof. Elaine Petro. I have been involved in several projects funded by NASA and by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). Namely, I worked on:

Mission analysis and optimization of in-space refueling strategies. Funding: AFOSR.
Discovery of new propellants for electrospray propulsion based on their molecular descriptors using machine learning. Funding: AFOSR.
Multiscale characterization of electrospray thruster plumes: from nanoscale (using Molecular Dynamics simulations) to millimeter scale (using N-body simulations). Funding: NASA.

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