Project Aeneas
A low-mass crewed Mars Ascent Vehicle designed for NASA’s 2021 RASC-AL competition
Project Aeneas was Virginia Tech’s first-ever graduate team to participate in NASA’s RASC-AL Forum: a full mission architecture design competition. In 2021, Theme 2 challenged teams to design a MAV that can significantly reduce the needs for advanced launch and EDL capabilities required by current MAV designs.
ISRU
The Aeneas MAV leverages in-situ resource utilization technology to derive most of its propellant on Mars, reducing the required payload capabilities of the Earth-launch and Mars-EDL stages. Additionally, this technology allows Aeneas to launch from a wide range of Martian latitudes, enabling NASA to prioritize scientific objectives.
SSTO
Featuring three aerospike nozzle engines, Aeneas can reach LMO from a wide range of Martian latitudes using a single stage. This single-stage-to-orbit design reduces complexity and enables flexibility in mission selection. For certain latitudes, Aeneas can reach an Earth Transfer Vehicle parked in a desirable 1-sol orbit.
Scalability
The SSTO design allows NASA to reuse the Aeneas architecture with little modifications. This enables regular human missions and reduces cost as mission frequency is scaled.
Proximity Operations
As the GNC subteam lead, I focused on designing the Aeneas’ orbital maneuvers and ADCS. This involved navigation and control hardware as well as the algorithms necessary for rendezvous and docking maneuvers. I worked on implementing relative-motion dynamic frameworks (such as HCW) and path-optimization algorithms (such as direct collocation).
Model-Based Analysis
As the systems engineering lead, I worked to develop a full spacecraft model that simulates subsystem integration. This allowed for faster and more cohesive design as well as full-architecture performance estimates. This in turn allowed for more efficient design optimization.
