Zero-Gravity Fluid Modeling Roadmap
A space-focused engineering company of about 50 staff — roughly 30 engineers, many with 15–30 years at NASA and related organizations — builds services and hardware for challenging industrial and scientific applications in orbit and microgravity. Its work depends on high-fidelity modeling and simulation, and it wants to advance the state of the art in zero-gravity fluid modeling for industrial processes such as sewage processing, grain beds, and aeration. Assessed the current tools, identified the gaps, and defined a future-state vision and roadmap.
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Improve zero-gravity fluid simulation for industrial processes: assess the current state of zero-G and orbital fluid modeling tools, identify where existing models and software fall short in microgravity regimes, define a future-state vision for improved capabilities, and develop an operational roadmap with risks and mitigation strategies.
An applied and strategic project rather than pure coding: students acted as digital facilitators and analysts, drawing on the company's experts for deep domain input. Discovery and a current-state assessment (kickoff workshop, literature and tools review) led into a structured gap analysis — physics, numerical, and configuration gaps, including the solver configurations, meshing strategies, and parameter settings that must change from 1-g to zero-G — and use-case prioritization, then a future-state modeling concept and a drafted roadmap. Weekly workshops with the company and weekly faculty checkpoints kept the work aligned.
A final report and executive deck covering the current-state analysis, a detailed gap analysis with prioritized use cases, a future-state vision for improved simulation capabilities (such as a conceptual “zero-G mode”), and a phased operational roadmap with risks and mitigations — plus supporting technical notes on the tools and methods reviewed and example configuration considerations for zero-G vs. 1-g. Presented to the company and academic stakeholders. Full production-grade software implementation was out of scope.