What goes up like a rocket, changes into a plane, then glides under controlled flight? For Christopher Wilkins ’05, Erik Palitsch ’05, Samuel Lee ’05, James Rollo ’05, and a team of Rensselaer students, it’s their senior capstone project. It’s called a morphing rocket—a rocket that changes inflight to an aircraft with wings and control surfaces to facilitate directed flight.

The morphing rocket idea is itself morphed from another student design project, funded by Northrop Grumman through Rensselaer’s O.T. Swanson Multidisciplinary Design Laboratory (MDL), to design and prototype changing—or morphing—wing shapes for aircraft and missiles. Paul Marchisotto ’79, vice president, advanced systems and technology, Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems Sector, and a member of Rensselaer’s Key Executive Program, sees great value in this work for the corporation and the students. “Northrop gets lots of fresh ideas and non-traditional concepts and the students receive real-world design, modeling, manufacturing, and testing experience.”

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