Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Summer Conference: NASA/USRA University Advanced Aeronautics Design Program and Advanced Space Design Program

The NASA/USRA University Advanced Design Program was established in 1984 as an attempt to add more and better design education to primarily undergraduate engineering programs. The original focus of the pilot program encompassing nine universities and five NASA centers was on space design. Two years later, the program was expanded to include aeronautics design with six universities and three NASA centers participating. This year marks the last of a three-year cycle of participation by forty-one universities, eight NASA centers, and one industry participant. The Advanced Space Design Program offers universities an opportunity to plan and design missions and hardware that would be of usc in the future as NASA enters a new era of exploration and discovery, while the Advanced Aeronautics Design Program generally offers opportunities for study of design problems closer to the present time, ranging from small, slow-speed vehicles to large, supersonic and hypersonic passenger transports. The systems approach to the design problem is emphasized in both the space and aeronautics projects. The student teams pursue the chosen problem during their senior year in a one- or two-semester capstone design course and submit a comprehensive written report at the conclusion of the project. Finally, student representatives from each of the universities summarize their work in oral presentations at the Annual Summer Conference, sponsored by one of the NASA centers and attended by the university faculty, NASA and USRA personnel and aerospace industry representatives. As the Advanced Design Program has grown in size, it has also matured in terms of the quality of the student projects. The present volume represents the student work accomplished during the 1992-1993 academic year reported at the Ninth Annual Summer Conference hosted by NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, June 14-18, 1993.