It is rocket science: Clemson physics graduate aims high with atmospheric research

Clemson University physics student Fermin Redondo has helped design instrumentation and experiments that NASA launched into space on its rockets.

Redondo, a senior physics major with a minor in mathematical sciences, knew he wanted to explore the sciences in college, and he found a great fit at Clemson.

“Clemson has been a great place to do physics research. We have very well connected, brilliant professors,” he said.

Redondo has participated in atmospheric physics research with Steve Kaeppler, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, at the Clemson Atmospheric Research Lab (CARL). He worked to develop devices to probe ionospheric data.

When solar radiation hits the gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, electrons are released. Those electrons then create plasma, called the ionosphere, which is what the probes are designed to study.

In his first and second years at Clemson, Redondo worked to develop circuits for the Langmuir probe. The Langmuir probe puts an electrode into a cloud of gas and plasma in the atmosphere and releases a voltage that attracts plasma into the probe. The probe then records data about the gas and plasma it has captured. Redondo traveled to NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to launch the Langmuir probe that he helped design.

Redondo’s senior thesis focused on creating a radio device that helps make ionosphere research less expensive and more accessible.

“The ionosphere is interesting because it’s a complex system with lots of environmental inputs, making it a natural laboratory. So designing devices to take measurements helps us understand it better. These parameters are also important in understanding space weather, which has important implications for radio and satellite communications,” he said.

While at Clemson, Redondo won the South Carolina Space Grant Consortium Undergraduate Student Research Award, a program supporting undergraduate students in conducting NASA-related research.

One of the aspects of research that Redondo didn’t anticipate enjoying was teaching. Part of the South Carolina Space Grant includes participating in community outreach. In his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, Redondo gave talks at local schools to inspire students interested in physics and science.

“It’s important to do anything you can to get involved and get others involved and excited to learn about the universe around you,” he said.

During his senior year, Redondo also started helping more junior students in Kaeppler’s lab, teaching them about different processes, and worked with a Creative Inquiry project to help teach rocket instrumentation to other Clemson students.

Research takes student around the world

Redondo’s research work and interests have taken him far afield during his years at Clemson. He traveled with other members of the Kaeppler lab to Switzerland to present their research at the European Space Administration Symposium on Rockets and Space Activities.

During the summer following his sophomore year, Redondo traveled to MIT’s Haystack Observatory to work on building a model of electron density in a specific layer of the ionosphere. He was a co-author in a published research paper from this work.

And after his junior year, Redondo went to the University of Maryland to explore a physical process called magnetic reconnection in the outer heliosphere. Researchers had noticed that specific particle energies were higher than expected, so Redondo worked to find what accelerated them through these simulations. 

Outside of the classroom, Redondo is a part of Latinos Unidos of Clemson University (LUCU) and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and participates in intramural sports. One of his favorite parts of Clemson is the world cinema program’s yearly film series at McKissick Theatre in Hendrix. “The world cinema program has this series; they always show a series of movies every semester. Sometimes, they’ll bring out the 35-millimeter film. I love going to those,” Redondo says.

After graduation, Redondo hopes to complete a post-baccalaureate program at NASA, where students gain more research experience. Afterwards, he plans to go to graduate school to study mechanical engineering or physics.