Steven Collicott

Steven Collicott started as an Assistant Professor at Purdue in 1991 after earning his PhD at Stanford, in Aeronautics and Astronautics. Now at the rank of Professor, he primarily teaches, advises, and researches in the control, use, and gauging of liquid and gas combinations in spaceflight, a topic known as zero-gravity two-phase fluid dynamics.

His unique undergraduate class, AAE418 “Zero-Gravity Flight Experiment,” immerses aerospace engineering students in the design-build-test process for experiments and other items which must function in the weightlessness of spaceflight. Through thirty years, he has led students through fifty parabolic aircraft flight experiments, eleven automated Blue Origin New Shepard experiments, one automated Virgin Galactic experiment, many smaller payloads, and now two human-tended experiments to fly on Virgin Galactic’s new Delta Class spaceships. He and his graduate student are to fly in 2027 and perform these historic experiments as key parts of the “Purdue 1” spaceflight mission.

Professor Collicott is also involved in numerical modeling of zero-gravity two-phase fluid statics problems which exhibit fascinating behaviors which are generally suppressed in Earth-bound fluid flows. This modeling work benefits both scientific research and the aerospace industry. He designed the science section of the highly successful Vane Gap experiment which flew in the International Space Station. He has partnered with industry to develop the best propellant gauging method for the geosynchronous communications satellites which global commerce depends on.