Spacecraft Engineering and Mission Design

New Course
AAE 590: Spacecraft Engineering and Conceptual Mission Design I

Also appears as “Spacecraft Engineering Mission Design”

Spring 2016
Time:  M W F 4:30-5:20 | ARMS 1021
Instructor: Prof.  Sarag  Saikia
Contact: sarag@purdue.edu

We are currently amidst one of the most exciting times in the history of exploration. The NASA “Journey to Mars” plan for human exploration of Mars; discovery of liquid water on Mars; a mission to explore Solar System icy moons (with subsurface liquid ocean with a tantalizing possibility of a second genesis of life beyond Earth); the great hydrocarbon lakes on Saturn’s moon, Titan; and prospects for a mission to the ice giant planets, Uranus and Neptune—are some of the highlights.

Why do we explore the Solar System? What are the most fascinating frontiers of space exploration? Can we detect life beyond Earth? What it takes to design a complex space planetary exploration mission, for e.g. by NASA? The course will touch these topics.

The course—Spacecraft Engineering and Conceptual Mission Design—is a “new transformative approach” to teach spacecraft engineering using innovative teaching, learning, and assessment methods by bringing in real-world experience into classroom. After all, it is here, where science, engineering, politics, money, and risk often clash.

What is the course about?

Complex mission concepts will be needed for future ambitious robotic space missions, which in turn, will require new spacecraft, new approaches, and technologies. The goal of this unique course is to prepare engineering and science students with the tools, methods, and approaches of spacecraft engineering, and systems thinking required in the design of next generation planetary exploration missions as done by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL).

Students in the course will first learn about the profound unanswered questions related to planetary science. Students will also acquire knowledge of space environments (including “extreme environments”) and their effects on the design of space systems. Students will learn the NASA’s space mission life cycle, mission types; and will be able to design different spacecraft subsystems (power, thermal, structures, instruments etc.), communications, cost analysis, risk and programmatics. Students will eventually learn about concurrent engineering and demonstrate the interconnectedness of different mission elements and how they are affected by science objectives, and constraints in cost and risk.  Students will also get the opportunity to analyze data from real missions and learn interpret the data to answer key science questions.

Students will work closely with scientists and engineers of JPL (JPL Advanced Projects Team – Team X), other NASA Centers, as well as from the JHUAPL.  Guest lectures will be organized, and there will be in-class display/demonstration of select spacecraft and instruments hardware .

The course is the first part of a two-semester course series, with the second part being offered in Maymester 2016. The course is highly interdisciplinary in nature and students from both the science and engineering with interests in conceptual space mission development are strongly encouraged to enroll.

Open to graduate students (MS. Ph.D.),  upper division undergraduates (seniors), or have permission of  the instructor.

You can see the tentative course outline on this page.