TU Delft Aerospace Engineering

🎉Congrats to the incredible students for their successful ground tests with their hydrogen aircraft last week at Rotterdam The Hague Airport!✈️

They carried out the first taxi tests of a hydrogen-powered aircraft at an operational airport in the Netherlands. During the test campaign the team were able to refuel gaseous hydrogen, test the aircraft’s propulsion system and complete their first (and second!) taxi run.

We are very proud of them and happy to be able to support them in their journey. Just think:

✈️ These students do not just design a hydrogen plane behind their laptops. They have the guts to actually build one and test it at a real airport, learning to deal with all the safety and operations restrictions. These tests are very valuable to develop the right hydrogen technology for aviation, but also help shape how to set up a safe and functional hydrogen infrastructure at airports.

✈️ The team members do this in their own time, because they’re on a mission to prove and promote liquid hydrogen as a sustainable alternative to conventional fuels in aviation. In the process, they learn to organize themselves, work and communicate together, and involve partners and sponsors. These are the kind of students who don’t think twice about working through the night to fix something in time to do the test. Their dedication goes far beyond their curriculum.

🔜 Stay tuned because we can expect much more from the team. Next steps: flying the aircraft on gaseous hydrogen and developing a safe storage tank for liquid hydrogen.

TU Delft researchers have taken their research beyond the simulator and into the air, conducting the first in-flight tests of touchscreen operation in the TU Delft’s research aircraft .

The team is investigating ‘biodynamic feedthrough’: unintentional movement of the pilot’s hand caused by flight manoeuvres and turbulence, which makes it difficult to operate touchscreens and can lead to dangerous situations.

🔬 By combining real-flight data with earlier simulator research in SIMONA, the project aims to develop smart models that can predict and correct these movements, improving the safety and reliability of touchscreens in aircraft, cars and ships.

This work is part of the -funded project and was carried out by researchers Daan Pool and Max McKenzie in collaboration with test pilots and technical staff, bridging simulation and real-world validation.

🚀 Next steps include testing prototype touchscreens in the PH-LAB research aircraft, as well as in real cars and ships. The team at is working on restoring haptic feedback to touchscreens so that the screens once again provide a genuine sense of ‘touch’, just like physical buttons do.

Read more about the research on our website!

aerospaceengineering research aviation

April 8 at 3:35 in the morning, on the rooftop of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, AETUDelft researcher Marco Langbroek captured a remarkable moment in space. Despite challenging conditions: twilight, a low horizon, and the Moon nearby, he decided to give it a try, encouraged by Rudolf Saathof.

Using the new 41.5-cm MISO telescope, he imaged the Artemis II spacecraft on its way back from the Moon nearly 359,000 km away. What you see: a faint moving dot between the stars, captured in four 10-second exposures over 1.5 minutes.

Originally designed to study atmospheric effects on laser communication, the telescope shows it can do more. Capturing objects beyond GEO hints at future possibilities for optical communication with deep-space missions.

A great catch, especially under these conditions. Thanks Marco!

🎥 video Artemis II + MISO telescope & observatory photos