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Southampton Uni climbs aboard LOHAN spaceplane project

Heavyweight postgrads to tackle Vulture 2 design

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The Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team is delighted to announce today that a heavyweight team of postgraduate students from the University of Southampton will be tackling the design of our Vulture 2 spaceplane.

Click here for a bigger version of the LOHAN graphicRegular readers will recall that we recently popped down to have a look at the Southampton University Laser Sintered Aircraft (Sulsa), with a view to using the same 3D printing process on our own vehicle.

We're much obliged to Professor of Aerospace Design Jim Scanlan...

 Professor Jim Scanlan with one of his department's UAVs

...and András Sóbester of the Computational Engineering and Design Research Group, School of Engineering Sciences...

 Dr Andras Sobester

...for their hospitality, and over lunch we discussed the idea of some of the department's students taking on the Vulture 2 challenge.

Professor Scanlan subsequently threw down the gauntlet to his students, which was picked up by Joshua Jeeson Daniel, Christopher Dodd, Jeroen van Schaik, David Cooper and Amrith Surendra (pictured below, L-R). I'm sure you'll join us in offering this aeronautical mean machine, which also includes Siddhartha Santos, who couldn't make the photocall, a hearty El Reg welcome.

Our elite team of Southampton Uni postgrads

So, you'll be asking yourselves, what happens next?

Well, we've provided the design team with the mission parameters and technical details of the Vulture 2 rocket motor and on-board camera and tracking kit, and we're leaving it up to them to take it from there.

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That's cheating ...

... Everyone knows university boffins can build space planes.... It's much more fun watching journalist's try to do it ... ? :-)

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Anonymous Coward

Any truth in the rumour?

Any truth in the rumour that Portsmouth University is developing an anti-aircraft gun? :-)

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@AC The funny thing about fees is that they are actually pushing more students towards the 'hard' subjects such as engineering and chemistry as they see the value in these courses.

I have a BSc in chemistry and still think at £9000 a year it would have been a bargain given the contact hours and expertese I could draw upon. For a philosophy degree with 3 hours of lectures a week im less convinced as are prospective students up and down the country.

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