Senior Design Team Captain Department Report

California State University, Northridge

Mechanical Engineering Department

2015-2016

Aerospace / RASC-AL Senior Design Project

Team Captain Final Report

Jasmine Wong

California State University, Northridge

Mechanical Engineering Department

18111 Nordhoff Street Northridge, CA 91330

1

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables............................................................................................................... 1

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 2

Competitions ................................................................................................................................... 2

RASC-AL ................................................................................................................................... 2

AIAA Region VI Student Conference ........................................................................................ 2

Senior Design Project Showcase ................................................................................................ 3

Team Dynamics .............................................................................................................................. 3

Leadership ................................................................................................................................... 3

Subgroups ................................................................................................................................... 3

Communication ........................................................................................................................... 5

Design Process and Subsystem Integration .................................................................................... 5

Requirement Identification ......................................................................................................... 5

Innovation ................................................................................................................................... 6

System-Level Trade Studies ....................................................................................................... 6

Integration ................................................................................................................................... 7

Timelines..................................................................................................................................... 7

Project Timeline ...................................................................................................................... 7

Mission Timeline .................................................................................................................... 8

Industry and Faculty Collaboration ................................................................................................ 9

Major Lessons Learned ................................................................................................................... 9

Suggestions ................................................................................................................................... 10

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 10

Appendix ....................................................................................................................................... 10

References ..................................................................................................................................... 11

List of Figures and Tables

Table 1: 2016 RASC-AL Themes................................................................................................... 2

Table 2: Team member assigned subgroups. .................................................................................. 4

Table 3: Project timeline. ................................................................................................................ 7

Table 4: Mission timeline. .............................................................................................................. 8

2

Introduction

This senior design team was created to provide an opportunity for Mechanical Engineering Seniors

to design a system using computer aided engineering methods and to avoid the costly process of

prototyping. The team participated in three competitions, one by the Institute of Aerospace and

NASA, an AIAA regional student paper conference, and CSUN’s Senior Design Showcase. The

team consisted of 26 Mechanical Engineering Seniors under the advisement by Dr. Peter Bishay.

A five page design abstract, 15 page technical paper, two presentations, a project display, and final

department design report were the required deliverables of the project year. Industry and faculty

collaboration was utilized for our team to learn and apply as much and as quickly as possible. As

team captain, the competitions entered, team dynamics, design process, industry and faculty

collaboration, lessons learned, and suggestions for future project teams are addressed in this report.

Competitions

This section covers the competition basics with a few team-decision details. The majority of the

deliverables details and team dynamics are discussed in later sections.

RASC-AL

The team was informed in September, 2015 that we would be competing in an National Institute

of Aerospace, NIA, and NASA university-level design competition, the Revolutionary Aerospace

Systems Concepts Academic Linkage (RASC-AL)1. The RASC-AL competition was focused on

the overall mission architecture and provided four themes from which the participating design

teams could choose that provided constraints and requirements for the aerospace design2. The 2016

themes provided are summarized in table 1. Our team, after review of the previous RASC-AL

winning technical reports, chose to design an Earth-Independent 1G Space Station. This was

chosen after two days of group discussion and two rounds of voting. The runner up theme was the

Lunar Ice-Trap ISRU Mining, Processing and Storage Infrastructure. A five page design abstract

was submitted to RASC-AL on January 14th to be reviewed for determination if the team would

continue in the competition.

Table 1: 2016 RASC-AL Themes.

Theme Mission Timeframe

Crew-Tended Co-Orbiting ISS Facility 2015-2020’s

Lunar Ice-Trap ISRU Mining Processing and Storage Infrastructure 2015-2035

Crewed Mars Moons Mission 2015-2035

Earth-Independent 1G Space Station 2015-2045

AIAA Region VI Student Conference

Following notification that the RASC-AL abstract was not chosen to continue with the

competition, we chose to submit a technical paper abstract to the 2016 AIAA Region VI Student

Conference3. This abstract was accepted and our team submitted a 15 page AIAA technical paper

for the conference and eight representatives presented at the conference on April 2nd, 2016 at the

University of Oregon in Corvallis, OR.

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At the conference, the team’s eight representatives had a chance to speak with the AIAA Executive

Director and retired ISS astronaut, Dr. Sandy Magnus, and Johnson Space Center Contractor,

Daniel Adamo. These two conversations validated a lot of what we had learned and attempted to

apply through the design process. It was also requested of us that we send the video used in the

presentation to the regional director, Oleg Yakimenko, for potential use in a webpage newsletter

on the AIAA website.

Senior Design Project Showcase

The 2015-2016 College of Engineering and Computer Science Senior Design Project Showcase

was held April 15th. The team participated in both the Presentation and Display categories. The

Presentation was performed by members of the team who had participated in the AIAA Student

Conference presentation. The Display allowed members of the team to present the project who had

no previous opportunity.

Team Dynamics

The team overcame their lack of aerospace and system engineering knowledge by dedicating the

majority of the team effort from September to January to learning about our chosen subgroup

disciplines. The leadership and subgroup responsibilities and member lists are summarized here.

Leadership

As team Captain, I was responsible for the project timeline, meeting schedule, industry and faculty

collaboration, subgroup assignment, communication, project-level deliverable preparation, and

subsystem integration. I assisted with trade studies due to my overall project knowledge and made

design decisions based on the suggestions and desired design directions of the subgroups.

I met with the advisor, Dr. Peter Bishay, on a near-weekly basis at the beginning of the project

year. Our initial focus was to understand the RASC-AL competition details and to make sure that

the subgroups were assigned. Following the establishment of the subgroups, and as they researched

and began their designs, Dr. Bishay and I were focused on faculty and industry collaboration. Late

in November, the focus switched to making sure the project would be developed enough to compile

the subgroups’ designs to write the RASC-AL Abstract.

Following this submission and notification that our team was not chosen to continue in the RASC-

AL competition, I was responsible for preparing the team and deliverables for the AIAA Regional

Conference. This included the re-activation of an AIAA Student Chapter in able for our team to

participate in the Conference. After the Conference, effort was switched to preparing the team and

deliverables for the Senior Design Showcase and preparing the final lead report.

Subgroups

Table 2 lists the team members and their assigned subgroups for the Fall 2015 and Spring 2016

semesters. Table A.1 in the appendix shows the “extra” involvement of the team members, this

includes the dedicated team that worked over the winter break to prepare the design for the RASC-

AL Abstract submission, the members who volunteered as the CSUN AIAA student chapter

officers, those who participated in the conference and showcase presentations and display, the

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three members who created the 3D printed models, and the student responsible for the presentation

video used in the AIAA Student Conference and CECS Senior Design Showcase Presentations.

Table 2: Team member assigned subgroups.

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Ebraheem Allanqawi

Abdulaziz Alrashed

Megerditch Arabian

Melissa Aryal

Brian Bolves

Claudiu Caldarescu

James Chan

Jesse Correll

Matthew Decker

Ricky Dinger

Jorge Garcia

Randall Harrington

Dosan Jyenis

Edward Kocharyan

Joseph Lewis

Maite Lopez

Jorge Ortiz

Rizel Podadera

Gary Sanders

Josef Staley

Francisco Tadeo

Qianyi Teng

Joshua Werner

Jasmine Wong Team Captain

5

Communication

The official form of team design communication were weekly progress reports and presentations.

The design progress reports from the subgroups were due every Friday and presentations from

each subgroup were done on Wednesdays. The presentations allowed for inter-group discussion

and input. This made it possible to discuss subsystem design changes so the other subgroups could

adjust as needed to ensure overall system cohesiveness. This encouraged a system-level mindset

in the team members and contributed to an overall design that was integrated throughout the

process.

Two cumulative design reports were required of the subgroups. One was due before the winter

break and the other before the AIAA Technical Paper was prepared. This required the subgroups

to make distinct decisions based on their research, current design, and best engineering

judgements.

Design Process and Subsystem Integration

Requirement Identification

The project scope and requirements were determined throughout the design process. Although this

is typically done before the project begins, I had to learn how to identify requirements at the same

time that design work was being done by the team. To get the team started in the right direction

and mindset, I analyzed the problem statement provided to determine the scope of the project.

From the 2016 RASC-AL problem statement, the expansion of human presence in space was

identified as the over-arching need. The ability to support multi-generational life independent from

Earth resupply was our team’s goal, created to help meet that need. In order to achieve this goal

three main objectives were defined; a 1G Space Station infrastructure, a space-based life support

system, and a resupply system. Two important factors defined these design objectives in terms of

feasibility; the location and lifespan of SEARCH. These two factors are discussed in the Trade

Studies section.

The problem statement provided requirements in terms of the mission timeline, number of crew,

resupply, and budget. The mission was given 20-30 years, starting in 2015, for technology

development and infrastructure construction, with an operational start-date between 2030 and

2040. Once operational, the station must be Earth-resupply independent after 5 years. A crew of

16-24 people must continuously live in a 1G environment on a space station. Resupply is allowed,

but must not be Earth-based.

The budget requirements stated that NASA is assumed to have a flat $16 Billion overall budget

throughout the design years. All current NASA programs could be reduced by up to 20%.

However, the ISS and SLS/Orion programs are exceptions to this and must be fully funded up

through 2024 and 2030, respectively. The budget requirement details were clarified through the

RASC-AL Frequently Asked Questions webpage and a Question and Answer Webinar held

November 18th. Essentially it was determined that SEARCH’s program would have access to the

entire Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) budget and 20% of the

remaining NASA budget4.

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Innovation

Judged strongly on our design’s feasibility and innovation, a unique challenge arose in leadership

of the team. There was a healthy amount of applicable mechanical engineering knowledge on the

team. However, there was very little knowledge by way of the aerospace field. This included

knowing the current state of the art. So to be required to innovate in this field within which we

were very new, was a supreme challenge. Some members of the team were able to learn quickly

and then turn around and be creative and think outside of what they had learned. Other members

were able to learn quickly, but struggled and balked at the requirement to consider ideas beyond

that which had already been done. Most major trade study decisions were a balance between my

desire, as project lead, to pull the design beyond the “comfortable” and their engineering

knowledge in the subsystems that defined feasibility.

System-Level Trade Studies

As mentioned previously, the location and lifespan of SEARCH were key goals and boundaries

that defined the subsystem requirements. The initial argument was a 60-year Earth-independent

time period where two generations would be born and grow to full maturity. This was deemed an

excessively long time that was not feasible in terms of durability of the station equipment, even

with assumed regolith ISRU material availability for on-station manufacturing of replacement and

repair parts. It was determined that the birth and full maturity of a single generation and the birth

and adolescence of a second was enough time to serve the defined purpose of SEARCH as a life-

in-space and reproduction-in-space experiment. This equated to only 30 years, a lifespan

determined to be more feasible than 60 years.

The location of SEARCH was determined and changed twice during the design year. Initially, a

more innovative choice, a modified Aldrin-cycler orbit was chosen to place SEARCH in a situation

where Martian and interplanetary research could be performed over the duration of the experiment.

The “modified” portion of this Earth-Mars cycler was that every couple years, SEARCH would

break out of the Aldrin orbit to orbit exclusively around Mars for a period of time to collect

resupply materials, including water, fuel, and regolith, from Mars and its moons. After a few weeks

of intensive research and calculations, it was determined by the Propulsion subgroup that not

enough was known about the orbital mechanics of the Aldrin-cycler to say that the benefits of the

innovation would offset the cost in fuel and danger to the crew in case of catastrophic system

failure. A Martian orbit was chosen as a replacement.

A Mars Aerosyncronous Orbit (MAO) of 17,000 km was chosen for proximity to Mars, Phobos,

and Deimos as well as the full, continuous sunlight available for station power production for two

seasons of the Martian year. This was the orbit presented in the RASC-AL Abstract submission in

January. However, after research into the current state of ISRU technology and the timeline

available for development, production, and launch, it was deemed unlikely that the ISRU units

could produce enough fuel for SEARCH to make a return trip to Earth. Moreover, it was

determined that to launch the acquired fuel and water from the ISRU units on the Martian surface

to SEARCH was too costly in terms of the launch vehicle fuel. With these issues making a Martian

orbit not feasible, a lunar orbit was chosen.

The final location decision was between a lunar orbit and an Earth orbit. While the Earth orbit

would be the safest, cheapest, and fastest, it was not chosen because it did not expand humanity’s

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reach into space. Humanity already has the International Space Station in LEO so it was decided

that to further humanity’s permanent reach into space, SEARCH would be placed in lunar orbit so

that it can serve as a 1G way-station between Earth and Mars after the experiment concludes.

Having SEARCH permanently in lunar orbit allowed for the relatively fast and easy return of crew

to Earth via capsules. It also removed the fuel requirements for the station return to Earth. This

orbit was presented in the AIAA Student Conference paper and presentation.

Integration

Even with weekly progress reports and presentations, it was difficult to get the teams to

communicate their changes and needs. This was especially difficult because, through our research,

new things were being learned at the same time the design was being created. It often happened

that a subgroup’s weekly presentation would bring to light the need for a near-complete redesign

of another subsystem.

Another difficulty we faced was in the subsystem calculations. Due to our lack of knowledge about

aerospace systems, the important mass, life support, propulsion, and power numbers had to be

over-estimated for the majority of the design year. It wasn’t until March/April, 2016 that our team

began to feel confident in our number estimations, but even then, issues with assumption changes

not being propagated throughout a subsystem’s design severely affected our accuracy in the

deliverables we had to submit during this time. However, despite these difficulties, the design

produced by the team showed a dedication to integration and a consideration of the overall system

throughout the design process.

Timelines

Project Timeline

Presentations were done on Wednesdays so that design changes could be made through the

weekend and Mondays were set aside for subgroup collaboration. Major deadlines and dates are

summarized in Table 3.

Table 3: Project timeline.

Month Day Deadline/ Important Event Month Day Deadline/ Important Event

August 22 First Meeting January 17 RASC-AL Abstract Deadline

September 9 Theme Choice Discussion I January 25 First meeting of Spring Semester

September 14 Theme Choice Discussion II February 15 AIAA Paper Abstract Deadline

September 14 Subgroup Preferences Due March 9 Subgroup Design Report II Due

September 21 Begin Industry Collaboration March 14 AIAA Technical Paper Deadline

November 2 Aerojet Rocketdyne-Structures April 1 AIAA Conference

November 5 Boeing Spectrolab-Power April 15 CECS Senior Design Showcase

November 12 Lead Meeting with Dr. Gandhi February 15 AIAA Conference Paper Abstract

Deadline

November 17 CSUN Fuel Cell-Power March 9 Subgroup Design Report II Due

November 28 Finish Industry Collaboration March 14 AIAA Conference Technical Paper

Deadline

December 14 Subgroup Design Report I Due April 1 AIAA Conference

January 8 RASC-AL Abstract due for Team April 15 CECS Senior Design Showcase

January 14 RASC-AL Abstract submitted

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Mission Timeline

Based primarily on budget requirements, Table 4 shows the extended timeline for the development

for and infrastructural buildup of SEARCH. The majority of research and development occurs

before 2025 to ensure technology readiness for manufacturing and Low Earth Orbit (LEO)

assembly. System integration is scheduled to begin in year 2031. Once assembly is complete in

LEO and life support systems are operational, the first four members of the experiment crew will

launch, board SEARCH, and finish the system integration and testing. In 2035, the station is “spun-

up” to the rotational speed required for 1G environment, this is indicated by the red line in Table

4. After this time, 1G-dependent systems will be installed, the remaining 12 members of the crew

will launch to SEARCH, and reliability verification of all Earth-independent systems will occur

between 2035 and 2040. This phase takes place while SEARCH is in LEO so that backup supplies

and food can be launched to the station before the Earth-independent experiment begins in 2040.

Table 4: Mission timeline.

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AssemblyR&D Manufacturing Launches

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Industry and Faculty Collaboration

The conversations and tours the team members had with industry professionals and CSUN faculty

helped validate design decisions and guide the subgroups in more fruitful directions. Information

gleaned from the meetings always led to more confident design improvements that research alone

did not provide. Of the ten companies and faculty members that I contacted, seven provided

feedback and/or met with a team member or subgroup.

Dr. Youping Gao at Aerojet Rocketdyne met with the Structures team to discuss in-orbit

manufacturing methods and other important factors to consider in space architecture. Dr. Gao also

took the subgroup on a tour of the facility and the group was able to see much of the propulsion

production floor and the 3D metal printing shop. Kaveh Rouhani at Boeing Spectrolab met with

the Power team and discussed solar cell state of the art and provided a tour of their production

facility. CSUN Professor Tom Brown met with and took the Power team on a tour of the CSUN

Fuel Cell facility. CSUN professor Dr. S. Jimmy Gandhi met with me to describe systems

engineering and give advice on how to encourage team system-level thinking and innovation.

CSUN Professor Tim Fox provided feedback on the RASC-AL Abstract and the AIAA

Presentation practice held on March 30th. Kevin Schoonover from Frontier Aerospace Corporation

in Simi Valley and CSUN’s Mechanical Engineering Department Chair, Dr. Hamid Johari, also

provided feedback on the AIAA Presentation practice.

Dave Berger of the Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) expressed interest in helping the

team. However, this contact was not made until November and since the AFRC focuses primarily

on aeronautics, the usefulness of their assistance could not be determined. Todd Nygren of The

Aerospace Corporation had been in email contact with me and plans were in the process of being

made to have a few of their engineers come to CSUN and discuss systems engineering with the

team in October. By the beginning of November, this email conversation stagnated and no follow

up was made. Dr. Charles Volk of Northrop Grumman had made positive contact with Dr. Bishay

in early November and was willing to host a few of the team members to hear of the project at

their location in Woodland Hills or to send a few engineers to CSUN to discuss the project.

However, November was again deemed too late to begin collaboration planning and the lead was

not pursued.

Major Lessons Learned

Systems engineering is absolutely vital in large projects. As team lead, having no knowledge or

experience in identifying requirements made it difficult to guide design decisions and often left

the team working in an environment of nebulous expectations. I realized that the team did not have

a clear focus early in the design year and had to quickly learn how to define scope and identify

requirements from both the problem statement and as they arose in the subgroups’ research.

Delegation is a skill in which I was not particularly strong. I learned that I could not hold every

member of the team accountable and pushed for subgroup leads that would be held responsible for

their group’s work. This freed up my time to pursue industry collaboration, system integration,

and deliverable preparation.

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Suggestions

Arrange for systems engineering and engineering discipline (aerospace, marine, aeronautics…)

workshops very early in the design year. The whole team will understand the importance of

integration and have a primer on the discipline under which they will be designing.

Projects with a reduced scope would allow the majority of the team members to apply the

knowledge they had gained in engineering courses to the design. The majority of this year’s design

was spent learning the very basics of a discipline with which we were not at all familiar, with little

to no time for analysis or detailed design work.

Conclusion

I was the team captain of 26 Mechanical Engineering Seniors under the advisement of Dr. Peter

Bishay. The team participated in three competitions, producing a five page design abstract, 15 page

technical paper, two presentations, a project display, and final department design report. I was

responsible for industry and faculty collaboration, scheduling, requirement identification,

subgroup assignment, deliverable preparation, and subsystem integration. Team communication

was achieved by weekly progress reports and subgroup presentations. Requirement identification,

team design innovation, station location and lifespan, and subsystem integration were areas of

significant challenges and design decisions faced as team lead. The project and mission timelines

were summarized, as well as the industry and faculty collaboration arrangements. Finally, major

lessons learned and suggestions for future design teams were defined.

Appendix Table A.1: Team member extra involvement.

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Megerditch Arabian

Melissa Aryal

Claudiu Caldarescu

Jesse Correll

11

Matthew Decker

Randall Harrington

Dosan Jyenis

Edward Kocharyan

Joseph Lewis

Maite Lopez

Jorge Ortiz

Gary Sanders

Josef Staley

Francisco Tadeo

Qianyi Teng

Joshua Werner

Jasmine Wong

References 1National Institute of Aerospace. “RASC-AL, Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts

Academic Linkage.” NIA, 2016. Web. Rascal.nianet.org. 2National Institute of Aerospace. “Call for RASC-AL Projects, 2016 RASC-AL Themes.”

NIA, 2016. Pdf. 3American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “AIAA Region VI Student Conference.”

AIAA, Mar 2016. Web. Region6.aiaastudentconference.org. 4National Institute of Aerospace. “RASC-AL, FAQs.” NIA, 2016. Web.

Rascal.nianet.org/faqs/.