Design spearing the surface of Jupiter’s moon earns students second place at AIAA competition

By Nicole Capozziello

Developing a module that can penetrate and move through the moon’s icy crust is a challenge recently undertaken by a team of University at Buffalo undergraduates, who earned second place at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 2021 Regional Student Conference in the Team Category for Region 1. 

The conference took place fully online on April 9-10, 2021 and was hosted by the Rutgers University AIAA Student Branch. Region 1 covers the northeastern region of the United States and Canada.

“The Region 1 Conference had the largest participation of all the regions this year,” says Alexandra Nordmann, a mechanical engineering major graduating this spring. The team was one of 11, representing universities from across the country, in their category. “The judges mentioned that the team category was the closest call and they were down to the last minute trying to determine the winners.”

In addition to Nordmann, the team members were Jack Gallagher, Olivia Garcia and Nathanael Ruppert. David Edwards, now a graduate student, has also been involved with the project. Mentorship was provided by Javid Bayandor, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and director of CRashworthiness for Aerospace Structures and Hybrids (CRASH) Lab, and Ardash Rajguru, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

“From week one of the project, the team worked as a very dynamic and cohesive unit and welcomed challenges to investigate the unknown,” says Bayandor. “They inspired and helped each other throughout the term of the project and represented UB with utmost professionalism.”

“From this project, I realized that clearly presenting work is very important in order to garner support from potential sponsors in the competitive world of engineering,” says Nathanael Ruppert, a mechanical engineering major set to graduate in spring 2022. “Additionally, I learned practical skills and gained knowledge on how to properly present an engineering project.”

“Our team earning second place is a fantastic accomplishment, particularly considering the high level of competition in our region,” says Francine Battaglia, professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. “Participating in conferences like this provides students with the opportunity to learn about other research endeavors, exposing them to a wider community. The conference also puts our students’ research in the limelight, reflecting our outstanding aerospace engineering program and exceptional faculty.”

The team’s design, called SPEAR (Subglacial ocean Probe Exploration, Access, and Research), is an exploration module composed of, among other elements, a tether bay that connects the module to the surface as it descends and a heating subsystem to help navigate the icy crust with the aim to reach Europa's subglacial ocean. All of the elements work together to create a cryobot capable of exploring the depths of subsurface icy moons, not limited to Europa.

The team members originally undertook the project during fall of 2020 as a part of Bayador's MAE 460 Space Mission Design course. The class of about 30 students split into four teams to take on different design challenges, which is how this group came together.

“After going through the different options for projects we could work on, our team arrived at the Europa/Icy Moon probe mission and began working on our solution,” says Jack Gallagher, an aerospace engineering major who is graduating in fall 2021. “This course was probably my favorite out of all my years here at UB. It was really cool to get to work directly with an experienced engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on our project and I learned a lot about mission design and its challenges.”

At the end of the semester, Bayandor gave the students on the Europa team the option to join the CRASH lab and continue working on the project.

“I enjoyed working with my team and when I was presented the opportunity to continue our research with CRASH Lab, I gladly took the opportunity,” says Olivia Garcia, a dual major in aerospace and mechanical engineering who will graduate in spring 2022. The team decided to enter the AIAA competition, and has been working towards it during the spring semester.

While they are proud of their accomplishment of placing second in a highly competitive category, working and learning together was the real highlight.

“My favorite part about CRASH Lab is the people. Everyone at the lab, particularly Dr. Bayandor, is super bright and helpful, and you can usually always find someone willing to help you out if you're stuck on something,” says Gallagher. “I can confidently say that without the feedback from CRASH Lab there's no way our presentation at AIAA would've been nearly as successful.”

The team plans to incorporate the feedback received from the judges and submit their paper to the 2022 AIAA Sci-tech Competition, to be held in early January of next year.

Looking forward, Nordmann says, “These research areas provide an analytical model for future Europan missions and help bring icy moon and subsurface ocean exploration one step closer to reality.”

Learn more about the competition here.