I led the MIT team in NASA's Human Lander Challenge to third place. We developed a parametric model to explore different possible architectures to mitigate propellant boiloff on the Starship HLS.
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The main goal for MIT Rocket Team Liquid Propulsion last year was successfully firing Helios, a legacy experimental ethanol-LOX engine that had been in development for 7 years. Due to a lack of funding and a desire to move on to new projects, the team decided that the Helios project would be terminated by June 2024. As test engineer and launch operations lead, I oversaw the successful hot-fire of Helios, marking the first liquid propulsion engine fire in over 10 years. A large part of the delays in Helios due to procedural and safety-related concerns, so I knew that a comprehensive overhaul of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) was needed. I created a P&ID of the fluid systems and redesigned the fill procedures to avoid personnel contact with the LOX, making all operations fully remote. When we found that there were some problems filling the LOX tank, I led the team in redesigning the valve configuration to allow for better venting and thermal insulation to prevent rapid boiloff from overpressurizing the engine tank and preventing flow into the tank
Read the MARTEMIS final paper here. It will be presented at IAC and submitted to IEEE Aerospace to be peer reviewed
I started as an undergraduate researcher at the MIT Space Propulsion Lab in the middle of Spring 2024 semester. I designed and manufactured a small-scale current collector to characterize the performance of the electrospray-ion thrusters. This current collector was used in various tests after completion.
In October 2023, I participated in Blue Origin's Space Innovation Challenge. This 2-week-long challenge prompted teams to solve a problem on Earth by moving it to space. My team proposed a distributive computing satellite network to eliminate carbon emissions from ground based data centers. I worked with a multidisciplinary team of Ph.D., MBA, and SDM students. I was the policy analyst and telecommunications engineer. I identified laws and regulations that needed to be adhered to and that could support development of the project to find distinct financial benefits over traditional data centers. I also defined the data transmission requirements for this network and designed a communications array that could support low latency operations.
I was the team lead of the MIT SEDS Team at the 2060 Lunar Economy Business Pitch Competition at SpaceVision 2024. We proposed a lunar transportation/communications infrastructure that connected lunar outposts through a maglev train system, mass drivers to orbit, and a communications network to facilitate the flow of materials, information, and people. See our presentation here.