Have you ever wondered how the future of transportation can be improved? Will it ever be possible to travel from one side of the planet to the other in just a couple of hours? We are aware that it might seem unreal or even crazy, something clearly still very far to achieve ultimately. Still, now we can proudly say that a group of PoliSpace students is one step closer to reaching this outstanding goal!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>We are talking about the FAST (Fast AeroSpace Transportation) Team, composed of five undergraduate Aerospace Engineering students from Politecnico di Milano. They managed to conceive and design a futuristic engine, which is able to take you from Paris to Tokyo in less than two hours. This new technology, as they called it, the TRINITY engine, provides unprecedented travel times, flexibility and reusability, being extremely competitive and innovative. Moreover, this project also complies with today\u2019s environmental standards and biggest concerns, as it burns as fuel liquid hydrogen only.<\/span><\/p>Let us learn more about this incredible project directly from the Team members!<\/span><\/p>As previously mentioned, you are a group of five undergraduate students from Politecnico di Milano: how did your journey as the FAST Team start, and what was the main idea behind it?<\/i><\/b><\/h5>
Before answering the question, it is essential to give you a brief background history. In 2020, a group of five people from Politecnico di Milano wanted to form a team to participate in the AIAA Design Competitions. They met with one of PoliSpace\u2019s founders and former president, Francesco Ventre, to create a team of undergrads for the challenge. In a few weeks, the Ice CREAM Team was born. This group, composed of ten students, took part in the challenge and designed a Mars Sample Return Mission. Unfortunately, the team did not win the competition. Still, it got selected to present the mission at IAC 2021 (International Astronautical Congress) in Dubai, where the project received great feedback from top experts in the field (ESA, ASI, Airbus, etc.). At that point, the team was well tested and craved redemption. Before taking off from Dubai, FAST Team was already born: 4 out of 10 students joined the group. Another adventure was on the way!<\/span><\/p>In the following days, the Team gathered other fellow students who wanted to contribute, and thanks to the help of PoliSpace, it started to design the engine for the competition. The main goal was to test ourselves and explore new frontiers, wisely recalling the experience gathered from Ice CREAM. And, of course, this time we wanted to win!<\/span><\/p>Yours is a hypersonic multi-purpose engine that promises to be able to travel from Paris to Tokyo (10.000 km) in less than two hours: how is this possible?<\/i><\/b><\/h5>
To cover all of this distance, the aircraft’s speed must be very high. Supersonic flights are not something new: Concorde and Tupolev 144 are examples from the past, and some companies are working in this field also nowadays. We started by looking at the current state of the art to know where our work had to start from.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>The engine had to be multimode, adapt to different flight conditions, and merge already-existing propulsion modes (we are sorry Star Trek fans, no curvature propulsion here!). Our team came up with the idea of using a turbofan for takeoff and climb, a ramjet for quasi-hypersonic cruise and a rocket for the final climb into space. All these modes were combined in a single system, with great integration and compactness, allowing the aircraft to cover the 10.000km span in less than two hours: TRINITY came to life.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t