Dr Dominik Saile

Dr Dominik Saile currently works at the Supersonic and Hypersonic Technologies department of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne. Additionally, he holds the position of adjunct professor at the Paihau-Robinson Research Institute at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Dr Saile pursued his studies in aerospace engineering, specialising in space systems and aerodynamics, at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. He obtained his master's degree in 2007 from the University of California in Santa Barbara, USA, focusing on numerical investigations of gravity-driven currents. Following his master's degree, he continued working as a scientist at the same institution.

In 2009, Dr Saile joined the DLR Supersonic and Hypersonic Technologies Department, where he conducted wind-tunnel experiments on the base flows of rockets. He took on the role of project lead in various international projects, including the design of the Hot Plume Testing Facility Cologne, the first tests in the facility using a gaseous hydrogen/oxygen combustion chamber, and tests with small-scale solid propellant rockets.

Alongside his involvement in international projects, Dr Saile completed his PhD in 2019 at RWTH Aachen University in Germany.

In 2020, he transitioned to the DLR Program Strategy Space R&D, where he was responsible for developing and implementing the DLR R&D space strategy. In this position, he was in charge of strategic networking and initiating collaborations within the DLR Quantum Computing initiative.

In 2022, Dr Saile participated in a research visit to the Robinson Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, where he spent six months contributing as a principal scientist to the development of electric propulsion systems, specifically AF-MPDs.