Aerospace Engineering Brown Bag Lecture Series, ft Ebrahimzadehshiraz Kianmehr and Shravan Hariharan

The October 30 Aerospace Engineering Brown Bag Lecture Series featured Ebrahimzadehshiraz Kianmehr and Shravan Hariharan.
Kianmehr Ebrahimzadehshirazi presented
“Deployment Mechanism Techniques for GT-1 CubeSat Mission”
Interest in small satellites, specifically CubeSats, has surged in recent years as they offer opportunities to conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations in space in such a way that is cost-effective, timely and relatively easy to accomplish. GT-1 is a student-led 1-U CubeSat mission being developed in the Space Systems Design Laboratory with a goal of developing a fully functioning and robust spacecraft bus to be implemented on future GT series CubeSat missions designed to operate in Low Earth Orbit. A critical feature of the spacecraft bus is the UHF antenna and solar panel deployment mechanisms. The small form factor of the 1-U CubeSat (10cm×10cm×10cm) imposes several constraints on such deployment mechanisms and therefore require unique solutions to meet the mission requirements. This presentation aims to explain the development and decision-making process involved in designing, manufacturing, testing, and integrating the deployment mechanisms including the problems encountered and the lessons learned throughout the past year
--
Shravan Hariharan presented
"Flexible Thermal Protection System Design for Mars Entry Applications"
Current Mars entry missions use a rigid thermal protection system, which is limited in diameter by the payload fairing of the launch vehicle. To account for the larger payload masses and decelerator surface areas required for future surface missions, NASA has conducted studies into Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators (HIADs), which allow large decelerators to be packaged into small volumes. However, HIADs require a flexible thermal protection system (FTPS), which is currently at a low TRL and requires high-fidelity modeling prior to full-scale system testing. This presentation includes the Martian atmospheric entry trajectory modeling for HIAD use cases, stagnation point heat flux calculation for a given trajectory, and the preliminary modeling of FTPS layups to determine the necessary material thicknesses for a given entry trajectory.
--
About the Series:
The Brown Bag Lecture Series is a tradition that gives select AE undergrads and grad students a unique opportunity to share their research before an audience that includes both their peers and their academic mentors and advisors.
www.ae.gatech.edu/brown-bag-l...