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Nagai-Ikami Lab
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The lab studies airplanes that fly on Mars and the thermal control of spacecraft.
AboutAbout the lab
Understanding and controlling the heat and flow of spacecraft.
The Nagai-Ikami Lab studies thermal and flow phenomena involved in next-generation spacecraft, as well as technologies to control them.
The lab works to clarify aerodynamic heating and aerodynamic phenomena when spacecraft reenter the atmosphere.
Its goal is to create new thermal control methods for next-generation spacecraft that operate for long periods in extreme thermal environments.
It also aims to realize new planetary exploration systems that use fluid forces, typified by Mars airplanes.
Key terms
- Aerodynamic heating
- A phenomenon in which an object flying through the atmosphere at high speed becomes hot through interaction with the surrounding air
- Heat pipe
- A device that transports heat without electric power through repeated evaporation and condensation of the liquid inside
- Temperature-sensitive paint
- A paint whose luminescence changes with temperature, allowing the temperature distribution over an object's surface to be captured as a whole area
- Low Reynolds number
- A state in which the effect of air's viscosity is large compared with the momentum of the flow. It occurs in small, slow flows
NewsLab news
Student's paper selected for the AIAA Showcase at the AIAA SciTech 2026 Forum
Student's paper selected for the AIAA Showcase at the AIAA SciTech 2025 Forum
Doctoral student wins Best Presentation Award for Young Researcher at ICFD2024
Master's student wins Best Presentation Award for Students Session at ICFD2024
High-altitude test of a propeller thruster for the Mars airplane conducted in a small balloon experiment
ResearchResearch themes
Spacecraft are exposed to a variety of thermofluid environments, from launch through space to the return to Earth. The lab's research rests on three pillars: understanding aerodynamic heating during reentry, spacecraft thermal control, and planetary exploration systems that use fluid forces.
*Illustrative imageAtmospheric Reentry
The lab focuses on aerodynamic heating in the hypersonic regime and dynamic instability in the transonic regime when a spacecraft enters a planetary atmosphere. For aerodynamic heating, it studies a measurement method using temperature-sensitive paint that can estimate heating directly and with high accuracy. For dynamic instability, it aims to elucidate the phenomenon through free flight in a ballistic range and a magnetic suspension wind tunnel.
*Illustrative imageSpacecraft Thermal Control
With the aim of mounting them on spacecraft, the lab researches and develops thermal control devices that use gas-liquid two-phase flow. Loop heat pipes and self-excited oscillating heat pipes have no moving parts and are light, compact heat transport devices that need no electric power, and they are expected to be installed on deep space probes.
*Illustrative imageMars Airplane
Together with JAXA and universities in Japan, the lab researches and develops an airplane that explores while flying through the Martian atmosphere. It works on developing ultra-high-performance airfoils in the low Reynolds number regime and understanding the flow field, along with flow and flight control (deploying the wings in the air), and plans a flight demonstration test at an altitude of around 35 km, where the flight environment is equivalent to that of Mars.
MembersFaculty
The Nagai-Ikami Lab's members consist of faculty, technical staff, secretaries, and doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- ProfessorHiroki Nagai
- Assistant ProfessorTsubasa Ikami
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Mars 2020 spacecraft thermal vacuum test PIA23263- D G2775 (cropped)” NASA / Public domain (cropped)
- Atmospheric Reentry: “Artemis II Heat Shield Installation (KSC-20230622-PH-CSH01 0012)” NASA Kennedy Space Center / NASA/Cory Huston / Public domain (cropped)
- Spacecraft Thermal Control: “OCI Loop Heat Pipe Installation (GSFC 20220331 PACE 033457)” NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / KATIE MELLOS/NASA / Public domain (cropped)
- Mars Airplane: “Latest Mars Aircraft Prototype Flies (AFRC )” NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center / NASA/Ken Ulbrich / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (伊賀 研究室): “M-1 rocket turbopump” Selevercin at English Wikipedia / CC BY 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (岡島 研究室): “Kochendes wasser02” user:Markus Schweiss / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (徳増 研究室): “Wikimedia Foundation Servers-8055 13” Victorgrigas / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (小原 研究室): “Unit Cell of Liquid Water” Cnrowley / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
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