2017 Undergraduate Team Space Design Competition
Rules – General
1. All AIAA Student Members are eligible and encouraged to participate.
Undergraduate students may participate in the undergraduate categories
Graduate students may participate in the graduate categories.
2. The report in Adobe PDF format must be submitted to AIAA online. Total size of the file(s) cannot
exceed 20 MB.
A “Signature” page must be included in the report and indicate all participants, including faculty and
project advisors, along with students’ AIAA member numbers and signatures. Designs that are
submitted must be the work of the students, but guidance may come from the Faculty/Project Advisor and
should be accurately acknowledged.
Each proposal should be no more than 100 double-spaced pages (including graphs, drawings,
photographs, and appendices) if it were to be printed on 8.5” x 11.0” paper, and the font should be no
smaller than 10 pt. Times New Roman. Up to five of the 100 pages may be foldouts (11” x 17” max).
3. Design projects that are used as part of an organized classroom requirement are eligible and
encouraged for competition.
4. The prizes for 2017 shall be: First place-$500; Second place-$200; Third place-$100 (US dollars).
Certificates will be presented to the winning design teams for display at their university and a certificate
will also be presented to each team member and the faculty/project advisor. One representative from the
first place design team may be expected to present a summary design at an AIAA Forum.
Aircraft Competitions may be invited to SciTech Forum
Engine Competitions may be invited to Propulsion and Energy Forum
Space Competitions may be invited to SPACE Forum
A travel stipend in the amount of $400 will be provided by the AIAA Foundation for the team
representative AFTER attendance at the AIAA Forum is confirmed.
5. More than one design may be submitted from students at any one school.
6. If a design group withdraws their project from the competition, the team leader must notify AIAA
Headquarters immediately!
7. Team competitions will be groups of not more than ten AIAA Student Members per entry. Individual
competitions will consist of only one AIAA Student Member per entry.
Copyright
All submissions to the competition shall be the original work of the team members.
Any submission that does not contain a copyright notice shall become the property of AIAA. A team
desiring to maintain copyright ownership may so indicate on the signature page but nevertheless, by
submitting a proposal, grants an irrevocable license to AIAA to copy, display, publish, and distribute the
work and to use it for all of AIAA’s current and future print and electronic uses (e.g. “Copyright © 20__
by _____. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission.).
2017 Undergraduate Team Space Design Competition
Any submission purporting to limit or deny AIAA licensure (or copyright) will not be eligible for prizes.
Conflict of Interest
It should be noted that it shall be considered a conflict of interest for a design professor to write or assist
in writing RFPs and/or judging proposals submitted if (s)he will have students participating in, or that can
be expected to participate in those competitions. A design professor with such a conflict must refrain
from participating in the development of such competition RFPs and/or judging any proposals submitted
in such competitions.
Schedule and Activity Sequences
Significant activities, dates, and addresses for submission of proposal and related materials are as follows:
Letter of Intent — 10 February 2017 12pm (MIDNIGHT) Eastern Time
Proposal submitted to AIAA Headquarters — 10 May 2017 12pm (MIDNIGHT) Eastern Time
Announcement of Winners — 10 June 2017 12pm (MIDNIGHT) Eastern Time
Groups intending to submit a proposal must submit a Letter of Intent via the AIAA.org online submission system.
The Letter of Intent should contain the names of participants, project title, name(s) of
faculty/project advisor(s), and contact information for the team leader and project/faculty
advisor(s).
Proposal Requirements
The technical proposal is the most important factor in the award of a contract. It should be specific and
complete. While it is realized that all of the technical factors cannot be included in advance, the following
should be included and keyed accordingly:
1. Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the Request for Proposal (RFP) requirements.
2. Describe the proposed technical approaches to comply with each of the requirements specified in the
RFP, including phasing of tasks. Legibility, clarity, and completeness of the technical approach are
primary factors in evaluation of the proposals.
3. Particular emphasis should be directed at identification of critical, technical problem areas.
Descriptions, sketches, drawings, systems analysis, method of attack, and discussions of new techniques
should be presented in sufficient detail to permit engineering evaluation of the proposal. Exceptions to
proposed technical requirements should be identified and explained.
4. Include tradeoff studies performed to arrive at the final design.
5. Provide a description of automated design tools used to develop the design.
2017 Undergraduate Team Space Design Competition
Basis for Judging
1. Technical Content (35 points)
This concerns the correctness of theory, validity of reasoning used, apparent understanding and grasp of
the subject, etc. Are all major factors considered and a reasonably accurate evaluation of these factors
presented?
2. Organization and Presentation (20 points)
The description of the design as an instrument of communication is a strong factor on judging.
Organization of written design, clarity, and inclusion of pertinent information are major factors.
3. Originality (20 points)
The design proposal should avoid standard textbook information, and should show the independence of
thinking or a fresh approach to the project. Does the method and treatment of the problem show
imagination? Does the method show an adaptation or creation of automated design tools?
4. Practical Application and Feasibility (25 points)
The proposal should present conclusions or recommendations that are feasible and practical, and not
merely lead the evaluators into further difficult or insolvable problems.
Request for Proposal
Manned Mars Orbital Mission Design
Background
The U.S. has not explored beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO) with humans aboard spacecraft since 1972.
However, NASA has exploration plans beyond LEO that include missions to cis-lunar space, NearEarth Asteroids (NEAs), the Martian moons, and eventually the surface of Mars. The proposed
Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) mission will identify, robotically capture and redirect a multi-ton
boulder from the surface a larger NEA to a stable orbit around the moon, where astronauts will explore
it in the 2020’s, returning to the Earth with samples. ARM is the first step beyond LEO into the
“Proving Ground” of cislunar space, representing NASA’s efforts to develop essential deep-space
capabilities (technologies, systems, and operations) required to safely send humans progressively
farther out into the solar system.
The next destination in the Exploration of the Solar System, in the Earth-independent regime of deep
space, would include a manned Mars program. This destination would make a logical manned
destination after the significant precursor robotic missions that have been studying the Red Planet since
the early 1970’s. Similar to the Apollo 8 mission that orbited the Moon, a similar orbital mission of
Mars would be a significant achievement that could lead the follow- on manned missions to the surface
of Mars. The orbital manned mission to Mars would test and demonstrate a number of key capabilities
directly applicable for future human exploration activities to Mars. These capabilities could include
advanced solar electric propulsion, deep-space trajectory and navigation methods, advanced extra-
2017 Undergraduate Team Space Design Competition
vehicular activity technologies, and some scientific opportunities to study the Mars surface from orbit.
As an integral part of a well-informed human exploration strategy, orbital manned missions are critical by
providing detailed information on the destinations that would be encountered by human missions as well
as understanding of the technologies and capabilities that need to be developed before a human landing
mission is undertaken. This approach was utilized during the Apollo program to reduce mission risk for
the lunar missions of the late 1960’s and 1970’s.
Design Requirements and Constraints
The project should:
 Define operations concept, key stakeholder needs, and top-level functional and human
performance requirements
 Select a vehicle architecture and the basic science mission objectives. Emphasis is to use simple
and proven technologies for cost, reliability, and scalability consideration.
 Perform trade studies for a Mars orbital mission at the architecture level. This includes vehicle
architectures, launch vehicles, science instruments, orbital mechanics, spacecraft and other mission
system-level trades. It is highly desirable to use technologies already demonstrated on previous
programs or planned programs.
 Describe the planned science approach, including planned observations, science instruments,
collection period, samplings and targets.
 Design and define the environmental control and life support system (ECLSS)
 Select the communications and ground systems architecture for downlinking mission data to the
ground.
 Design and define the mission operations, including launch, orbit transfers, station keeping, and other
maneuvers deemed necessary for the science mission. The ground segment for operations shall be
also defined.
 The overall design solution should consider safety, reliability, affordability, operability.
 The cost for the mission should not exceed $5B US dollars, including launch vehicles.
Deliverables
This project will require a multi-disciplinary team of students. Traditional aerospace engineering
disciplines such as structures, propulsion, flight mechanics, orbital mechanics, thermal, electric power,
attitude control, communications, sensors, environmental control, and system design optimization will
be involved. In addition, economics and schedule will play a major role in determining design viability.
Teams will make significant design decisions regarding the configuration and characteristics of their
preferred system. Choices must be justified based both on technical and economic grounds with a view
to the commercial extensibility of any capability being developed.
The following is a list of information to be included in the final report. Students are free, however, to
arrange the information in as clear and logical a way as they wish.
1) Requirements Definition – should include the mission requirements and design requirements for the
2017 Undergraduate Team Space Design Competition
manned orbital Mars objectives at the mission, system and subsystem level.
2) Trade Studies – should include the trade studies for the mission architecture and mission
operations.
3) Design Integration and Operation – should discuss how the trades selected in section 2 are integrated
into a complete package. This section should discuss design of all subsystems: structures, mechanisms,
thermal, attitude control, telemetry, tracking, and command, electric power, propulsion, scientific
payload and sensors, interface with the launch vehicle, and mission concept of operations.. A mass and
power budget should be included, broken down by subsystem, with appropriate margins. The ground
system proposed for operation shall also be included. A summary table should be prepared showing all
mass, power and other resource requirements for all flight elements/subsystems with appropriate PDRlevel margins.
Cost Estimate – a top level cost estimate covering the life cycle for all cost elements should be included.
A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) should be prepared to capture each cost element including all flight
hardware, ground systems, test facilities, and others. Estimates should cover design, development,
manufacture, assembly, integration and test, launch operations and checkout, in-space operations, and
disposal/decommissioning. Use of existing/commercial off-the-shelf hardware is strongly encouraged. A
summary table should be prepared showing costs for all WBS elements distributed across the various
project life cycle phases.
4) List of key project risks and planned risk management/mitigation approaches
5) Summary and References. A concise, 5 page summary of the full report should be included and clearly
marked as the summary. References should be included at the end. A compliance matrix listing the page
numbers in the report where each these 5 sections, as well as the items identified under the “project
should” section can be found, is mandatory.
Supporting Data
Technical questions can be directed to Mark Andraschko ([email protected]) or William
Tomek ([email protected]).
References