Spacecraft Design Laboratory

Space mission design, spacecraft algorithms, and prototype spaceflight hardware are developed and tested in the Spacecraft Design Laboratory (SDL). Prototype potential components are also designed and produced in this space.

Spacecraft Preliminary and Detail Design courses are taught in the lab.

Previous year-long student design team projects have included: manned lunar base; earth asteroid defense system; reusable launch vehicle; mars entry, descent, and landing vehicle; earth-independent one-g space station; deep space gateway-based lunar lander; cis-lunar-based earth-mars transit vehicle.

Past projects have entered and won the NASA/NIA Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concept – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) competition, and the AIAA Space Design competition.

Equipment

• 15 Dell workstations