The reuse of space launch vehicles is seen as an important way to further decrease the cost of placing satellites into orbit around the Earth. The European Space Agency, as part of its Future Launcher Preparatory Program (FLPP), aims to develop such technology to assure the future competitiveness of the European space industry. Methane is a fuel of particular interest for future European reusable launch vehicles. However, key information on the use of methane in, e.g. cooling channels of rocket nozzles, is not available in open literature. Specifically, few studies have reported on the heat transfer properties of methane at supercritical conditions and less have reported on the thermal stability of this fuel. Within the MERiT+ project at the Department of Energy Technology, several aspects of cooling channels for methane-fueled rocket engines are investigated including the heat transfer behavior, the pyrolysis process of methane on candidate wall materials and the effect of surface roughness due to additive manufacturing on these aspects as well as pressure drop. Methane pyrolysis results in the deposition of solid carbon on the cooling channel wall which, due to the low thermal conductivity of pyrolytic carbon, can cause reduced heat transfer and therefore increased wall temperatures. Such temperature increases can exacerbate thermo-mechanical damage of the rocket engine, thereby reducing the life of critical parts. This effect is of concern to future designs of highly reusable rocket engines. The current work, for which HPC resources are requested, aims to conduct DFT calculations on the adsorption of methane on nickel surfaces. Here, the focus is on the effect of common alloying elements found in high-temperature nickel alloys used for rocket engines. By understanding the effect of these elements on the adsorption, and therewith the pyrolysis process, experimental results can be better understood. Moreover, if successful, future material selections could be supported by both experimental and computational data, thereby reducing the number of new experiments that need to be conducted. Main supervisor: Jens Fridh, Department of Energy Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology.