Hi there! I’m Rahil Makadia, a planetary defense researcher whose work focuses on developing and improving humanity’s strategies to protect Earth from potential asteroid impacts.

I’ve also had the pleasure of working on a couple of asteroid science missions. I was a member of the science investigation team for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and have interned on the OSIRIS-REx/OSIRIS-APEX mission.

As a graduate student, I was a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity (NSTGRO) fellow studying Aerospace Engineering in the APEX Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). My work at UIUC primarily focused on NEO deflection using kinetic impactors. As part of my dissertation, I also developed an open-source software package called the Gauss-Radau Small-body Simulator (GRSS) that specifically focuses on planetary defense. If you are interested in knowing more about my work, check out the projects at the top of this page (under my name) or my CV.

In the past I’ve worked on a variety of projects, including reusable crewed lunar landers (report, presentation, and poster) and habitats for Mars missions (report and presentation) during my undergraduate years. As a graduate student, I have also done work on aerogravity assists using blunt bodies at Venus (publication).

Feel free to reach out at any of the links at the bottom of this page (see the round icons) with questions, opportunities, or just to say hi!