Kevin L.G. Parkin (born 1977 in London) is an American British scientist who is best known for his study of

beamed energy propulsion Beam-powered propulsion, also known as directed energy propulsion, is a class of aircraft or spacecraft propulsion that uses energy beamed to the spacecraft from a remote power plant to provide energy. The beam is typically either a microwave or a ...

Areas of interest

Rocket propulsion and

gasdynamics Compressible flow (or gas dynamics) is the branch of fluid mechanics that deals with flows having significant changes in fluid density. While all flows are compressible, flows are usually treated as being incompressible when the Mach number (the ra ...

, high power microwaves and directed energy, object-oriented

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

, space mission design. ince 2016, Kevin has served as the systems director of Breakthrough Starshot, a $100M initiative to send a beam-driven probe to Alpha Centauri within the next generation.

Education

Parkin attended the

University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_labe ...

, where he received his bachelor's degree in physics in 1999. He then attended graduate school at the California Institute of Technology, where he received his master's degree in science in 2001. He completed his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

at Caltech in 2006, from which he derived his research for beam energy.

Career

Parkin was previously a member of the Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley Research Staff and previously Deputy Director of the Mission Design Center at

NASA Ames The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

, and project lead for the Microwave Thermal Rocket. Beginning with his Ph.D. thesis on Microwave Thermal Propulsion, his work spans theoretical, computational and experimental domains for the general problem of space access and economics. In July 2005, he was awarded the Korolev Medal by the Russian Federation of Cosmonautics. He founded the NASA Ames Mission Design Center (MDC) and developed its software architecture. The Ames MDC was the first of its kind to make extensive use of groupware, for example in pooling knowledge to create and maintain spacecraft parts databases. Another innovation was the use of a centralized parametric mission design archive that enables realtime concurrent design collaboration and object-oriented style 'inheritance' of missions to promote reuse of designs and the growth of design trees. In 2010, Parkin was tapped by the NASA Ames Center Director to manage the 100 year Starship study for NASA and DARPA. Parkin is a member of the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physica ...

(IOP).

Patents and selected publications

* Parkin, K.L.G, and Culick, F.E.C, The Microwave Thermal Rocket, Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, in preparation. * Parkin, K.L.G, The Microwave Thermal Thruster and its Application to The Launch Problem. Ph.D thesis, June 2006. * Kevin L.G. Parkin, Joel C. Sercel, Michael Liu, Daniel P. Thunnissen, ICEMakerT: An Excel-Based Environment for Collaborative Design, IEEE Aerospace Conference, March 8–15, 2003, Big Sky, MT. -- IEEEAC Paper #1564. * K.L.G Parkin. A Microwave Heat-Exchange Thruster and Method of Operation the Same. - U.S. Patent 6993898

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parkin, Kevin L. G. Living people 1977 births Alumni of the University of Leicester California Institute of Technology alumni Carnegie Mellon University faculty British emigrants to the United States Scientists from London NASA people