Editors

Dr. Riheng Zheng is Professor of Beihang University, China. He earned his B.S. degree in aerospace propulsion from Beihang University (formerly Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) in 1984 and M.S. degree in aerospace propulsion from the Ministry of Aerospace of China in 1987, and a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Cambridge in 1997. He was a Research Fellow in School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds in the UK from 1998 to 1999.

He has been a Member of Standing Committee of Science and Technology of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, Deputy Director of Science and Technology on Scramjet Laboratory and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Propulsion Technology. He is also the Chief Engineer of Beijing Power Machinery Research Institute and has conducted a broad range of research and technology development projects in aerospace propulsion. Prof. Zheng has led a variety of cutting-edge research projects covering a broad range of advanced propulsion technologies. He has developed a number of advanced propulsion systems which have been successfully applied in space industry.

He holds 32 patents and has authored over 40 publications in the areas of aerospace propulsion. He has been awarded with China Aerospace Foundation Prize and obtained the National Defense Science and Technology Prize.

He is a Member of International Astronautics Federation and the Vice Chairman of International Astronautical Federation Space Propulsion Committee.

(2)  Editorial Board Members:

Dr. Mariano Andrenucci is Independent Consultant and Author. He is an emeritus Professor of Electric Propulsion at the University of Pisa, where he has been on the Faculty of Engineering since 1977. He was a visiting professor of Spacecraft Propulsion at Syracuse University, USA, in 1983; General Chairman of the International Electric Propulsion Conference in 1991 and in 2007; founder of the Centrospazio Research Centre in Pisa in 1989; founder of the Alta company in 2000, later to become SITAEL (2015); Chairman and CEO of Alta until 2015; Head of SITAEL’s Propulsion Division until 2020; awardee of the ERPS Ernst Stuhlinger Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Electric Propulsion in 2011. His research area includes electric rocket propulsion, chemical rocket propulsion, energy conversion, orbital mechanics, and space systems. He has authored or co-authored over 250 scientific publications, mainly in the propulsion sector.

Dr. Claudio Bruno joined the Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Connecticut, USA in 2016. Prior to that he was Head of the High Speed Group at the United Technologies Research Center from 2011; Professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” from 1989, with a simultaneous appointment as Combustion Leader at the Center for Scientific and Applied Research (CRS4), Italy, from 1991 to 1996; member of the Italian National Research Council since 1983; Chief Scientist at Catalytic Energy Corporation (1981-1983); Research Staff at Princeton University from 1977 to 1981; and Senior Scientist at Physics International, San Leandro, California, from 1975 to 1977. He received his MEng. degree (summa cum laude) from the University of Rome (1965), where he did also graduate work at the School of Aerospace Engineering, and obtained his MA and PhD in Aerospace and Mechanical Sciences from Princeton University, in 1972 and 1977. He has been a Visiting Scientist at the Hypersonic Aerodynamic Institute of China’s CARDC Center three times; three times invited scientist under the USAF Windows on Science program and has lectured at the Von Karman Institute in Belgium four times. He has been European Chair of the NATO group on SCRJ propulsion and chaired the Physics Advisory Group to ESA (2006 to 2011). He is an AIAA Associate Member and a Full Member of the International Academy of Astronautics. He has authored and coauthored more than 350 papers and four books on most aspects of gas dynamics, combustion and propulsion. Prof. Bruno has been elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE) in 2017.

Dr. Bénédicte Cuenot is Project Leader of the Computational Fluid Dynamics group, Centre Européen de Recherche et de Formation Avancée en Calcul Scientifique (CERFACS), France. She obtained her engineering and master degree from Ecole Centrale de Paris in 1990. After one year as research engineer in the University of Boulder (CO, USA), she came back to France where she defended her PhD in 1995 and HdR in 2000, both in the field of numerical combustion. She is now devoted to developing advanced and massively parallel software for the numerical simulation (DNS and LES) of turbulent reacting flows, plasma flows and heat transfer (including thermal radiation) in industrial systems. With these tools she addresses various topics such as pollutant emissions, ignition and extinction, combustion efficiency or thermal fatigue of combustion chambers in the fields of propulsion and energy production. Dr. Cuenot teaches combustion and fluid mechanics in various universities and has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal papers. She has participated in many collaborative projects at the national and international level, and is much experienced in coordinating European projects, mostly financed by the European Commission where she also acts as an expert evaluator. She has been distinguished as a Fellow of the Combustion Institute in 2018 and is a member of the Editorial Board of Combustion and Flame since 2018.

Her research area includes modelling and simulation of turbulent reacting flows and heat transfer, plasma flows in relevant to propulsion systems.

Dr. Gregory L. Matloff, emeritus associate and adjunct associate professor of physics at New York City College of Technology (NYCCT), has coordinated the astronomy program at that institution, has consulted for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, is a Fellow of the British interplanetary Society, a Hayden Associate at the American Museum of Natural History, and a Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics. His pioneering research in solar-sail technology has been utilized by NASA in plans for extra-solar probes and in consideration of technologies to divert Earth-threatening asteroids. He served as guest professor at the University of Siena, Italy, in 1994, has chaired many technical sessions and was honored by NYCCT as Scholar-on-Campus during the 2008-2009 academic year. In 1998, he was a winner of a SETI competition sponsored by the National Academy of Discovery Science. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 research papers and nine books, which have been cited about 400 times. One of his books, The Starflight Handbook (Wiley, NY, 1989), was co-authored with MIT science-writer Dr. Eugene Mallove and helped establish interstellar-propulsion studies as a sub-division of applied physics. More recent books (Living Off the Land in Space, Springer, NY, 2007 and Paradise Regained, Springer, NY, 2009) co-authored with his artist wife C Bangs and NASA manager Les Johnson, have dealt with human space habitation and utilization. His 2008 book with Les Johnson and Italian researcher Dr. Giovanni Vulpetti (Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel, Springer, NY) received an excellent review in Nature. Most recently he has published an artist’s book with C Bangs, Biosphere Extensions: Solar System Resources for the Earth. Greg Matloff was appointed an advisor to Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Initiative Project Starshot in April 2016. In January 2017, he presented a Frontiers Lecture on interstellar travel at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.