Eric Anthony Comstock

PhD Aerospace Engineering Student

Georgia Institute of Technology

Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering, Fall, 2024. Broad and deep experience in aerospace research in multiple domains which include high enthalpy/high fidelity hypersonic computational fluid dynamics, light-particle interactions, simulations and numerical algorithm development, optical diagnostics, magnetohydrodynamics, ferrohydrodynamics, and plasma dynamics. Current research involves using analytical and computational methods to evaluate the effectiveness of novel magnetohydrodynamic plasma-breathing propulsion options and is being conducted in the Low-Gravity Science and Technology Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Academic CV Professional Resume

What I Do

Publication of my first journal article

I am very happy to announce that I have published my first journal article in Acta Astronautica entitled "On the feasibility of spherical magnetic liquid mirror telescopes." Here is a link to the preprint article.

Spring 2025 Team Lead on Analysis of Rotational Habitat Atmosphere Dynamics

For the Spring of 2025, I am excited to lead a team of undergraduate researchers who will be analyzing the feasibility of containing atmospheres using rotational gravity in large space habitats and quantifying the loss rates thereof. You can read about it here.

Current Graduate Research

External Plasma-Breathing Magnetohydrodynamic Propulsion

The hazard posed by space debris has the potential to severely dampen future space prospects. Though mitigation strategies such as satellite deorbiting and active debris removal exist, both are hindered by significant technical and economic challenges, such as the need for high Delta-V budgets. Atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion has gathered attention because of its potential to avoid onboard propellant storage, but current implementations involve major architectural modifications. In this context, an external magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion system is proposed as a low-footprint alternative that avoids major spacecraft redesigns by adopting an external patch configuration. Adopting a first-order analysis scheme, the effective specific impulse (defined as impulse generated per unit device mass) of the MHD conductive propulsion system is 4-10 km/s for mission durations of 2-10 years and 10-20 km/s for mission durations of 25 years. Both active use of conductive MHD propulsion and passive use as a magnetic sail are competitive against current low-thrust propulsion technologies in the context of spacecraft deorbiting.

I enjoyed presenting a full paper on this research at the 2025 AIAA SciTech Forum in Orlando on January 9, 2025. My conference paper and my Powerpoint presentation from the SciTech forum can be found on my "Projects" page.

If you'd like to watch my presentation, you can view it here.

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Awarded

I am very pleased to announce that I won the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship to support my research into external plasma-breathing magnetohydrodynamic propulsion! You can read about it here.

Simulations and Numerical Algorithm Development

I have experience with both the finite difference method and the finite element method for hyperbolic and parabolic PDEs in arbitrary dimensional spaces. I have used these to evaluate Vlasov's equation to find the plamsa density function in a combined position and momentum space to simulate collisionless plasmas, and the Navier-Stokes equation to simulate hypersonic collisional flows. I have also used this method to evaluate thermal distributions and material stresses. I have experience simulating dynamic systems with high degrees of freedom using Runge-Kutta 4.

Space Systems

I am especially interested in contributing to any space systems project so that I may help get humanity to space which, I believe, is the only way to ensure the long-term survival of the human race.

Mentoring and Teaching Youth

I have started an outreach project through the Davidson Institute providing mentoring and teaching of high-level topics to high-potential youth who do not otherwise have access to these topics due to age restrictions. For more information about this outreach, please see my "Mentoring and Teaching" page.