A Systems-Level Investigation into the Synergistic Application of Methane Fuel Across Aviation and Space
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nguyen-cmnguyen-sm-aeroastro-2026-thesis.pdf
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16.68 MB
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56e86fa7de35b96895e6a42c2016a7ef
Author(s)
Nguyen, Christina
Advisor(s)
de Weck, Olivier
Date Issued
May 2026
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Methane has emerged as a high potential fuel for future commercial aviation and space systems due to its favorable performance characteristics, lower-carbon combustion relative to traditional hydrocarbon fuels, comparatively feasible cryogenic storage, compatibility with sustainable production pathways on Earth, and relevance to in-situ resource utilization for crewed spaceflight. To support strategic progress in both sectors, this thesis investigates the synergistic application of methane across aviation and space by developing and demonstrating a methodology for identifying areas of high cross-domain potential and evaluating the design parameters and technologies that can enable shared advancement. The qualitative portion compared methane production, onboard storage, and onboard use across commercial aircraft and launch vehicle applications using system level requirements and technology landscape analysis of 135 relevant projects filtered from an initial set of 409 methane-related projects in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Technology Portfolio System (TechPort). This analysis identified cryogenic storage as the area with the strongest crossdomain alignment. The quantitative portion then modeled storage systems for Narrowbody aircraft during ground hold and launch vehicles in low Earth orbit (LEO). In total, 77,760 launch vehicle storage architectures and 160,816 aircraft storage architectures were generated and compared using design space convex hull overlap, sensitivity analysis, and candidate technology assessment. The results suggest that shared methane storage outcomes are possible across aviation and space, but that each design variable contributes differently to enabling synergy. Passive cooling capability was identified as the primary feasibility enabler and highest-value design lever for thermal performance. Local sensitivity results indicate that changes in passive cooling capability have a much stronger effect on boil-off reduction than on mass penalty, with the relative boil-off response approximately 37 times greater than the relative mass response for a representative launch vehicle storage architecture and approximately 6 times greater for a representative aircraft storage architecture. Active cooling design space comparison showed broad cross-domain implementation overlap but acted mainly as a secondary boil-off for power trade lever whose value depends on the passive cooling system it supports and cross-domain power constraints. Pressure was found to be an architecture-setting constraint, co-design tuning variable for active cooling, and mass for power trade lever rather than a primary thermal management mechanism, with shared implementation existing below 4 bar. Candidate technology assessment identified 22 passive cooling and 5 active cooling technologies as synergistically feasible, with integrated multilayer insulation (IMLI) emerging as the strongest passive cooling candidate. Overall, this thesis identifies cryogenic storage, and particularly lightweight high-performance passive cooling, as the most promising area for strategic and synergistic development between future methane-fueled aviation and space systems. Future work should improve model fidelity to improve design space results and can broadly apply the methodology to other cross-domain areas to determine synergistic development pathways.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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