Mission Concept Academy (MCA)

Project Manager, Science Team, Engineering Team

January 2021 - May 2021

Background

The Mission Concept Academy (MCA) is a ~3 month long program, where roughly 40 teams of 10 undergraduate students are assigned a mission objective, and must research and design a mission objective, timeline, vehicle, and business operations. The objective for my MCA session was to design a Venus atmospheric vehicle, with very basic mass, volume, and budget constraints. The team was broken into 3 subteams: Science, Engineering and Business. I took the roles of Project Manager, Science team member, and Engineering team member.

What I Did

• Led diverse team and planned meeting/communication logistics, mission timeline, and operational timeline of atmospheric Venus mission.
• Documented team progress, developments, research, and references to culminate in a PDR (see below).

• Researched Venusian atmospheric conditions to determine design requirements.
• Determined scientific objectives of mission.
• Researched viable scientific instrumentation to meet science objectives.

• Designed vehicle airframe and integrated all other subsystems using NX.
• Researched and implemented anti-corrosion coatings.
• Researched and implemented RTG usage and applications.

• Siemens NX (certified)
• Mission timelines