Selected work · 08
Lunar Rover
How do you turn a question about a lunar pit into a mission? Our L’SPACE team worked through the requirements, trade studies, and design reviews to find out.
Explore the engineering ↓
- My role
- Project manager · mission statement, system overview & change control
- Status
- Conceptual mission design · L’SPACE Team 19
- Focus
- Requirements · trades · systems engineering
The purpose
This project focused on the engineering design process: defining a mission, comparing alternatives, planning resources and procurement, and taking a coordinated design through MCR, SRR, MDR, and PDR. The rover is a concept developed for that process; it was not a flight-hardware build.
Inside the mission design
Inside the work.
Our science traceability matrix connects the mission goals to measurements and instrument requirements. PDR, page 10.
The annotated rover overview brings mobility, solar power, cameras, and the instrument arm into one view. PDR, page 100.
The N² interface chart maps the relationships between power, thermal control, navigation, communications, data handling, and payload. PDR, page 98.
Our functional block diagram follows power, data, mechanical, and thermal connections across the proposed system. PDR, page 99.
Team PDR CAD: rocker-bogie subassembly, part of the terrain-mobility concept.
Team PDR CAD: wheel geometry and motor packaging for the mobility subsystem.
Team PDR CAD: the structural base that must accommodate subsystem interfaces.
Team PDR CAD: the mast subassembly within our proposed rover architecture.
My role: bring the mission together
As project manager, I worked on the mission statement, team organization, change control, and final review, with shared responsibility for the spacecraft overview. My job was to help connect the team’s specialist work into one coherent mission design.
That meant keeping the scientific purpose in view while mechanical, electrical, thermal, science, and program decisions developed together.
Start with the question
Our concept targets the Mare Tranquillitatis Pit: its thermal environment, structural integrity, radiation, resources, and subsurface composition. Those questions shaped the measurements we needed and the instruments we considered.
The science traceability matrix makes that chain visible: goal → objective → measurement → instrument requirement. It gave us a way to ask whether a proposed subsystem was serving the mission.
Trade studies: make the decision visible
We compared alternatives using criteria and weights, rather than choosing a component in isolation. In the SRR power trade, capacity carried 35% of the weighting, deterioration 25%, and efficiency and reliability 20% each.
The important work was deciding what mattered, comparing options against the same criteria, and carrying the choice into the wider design. Power decisions affected operations, thermal needs, and packaging.
Connect the subsystems
The proposed architecture combines a six-wheel rocker-bogie chassis, an instrument arm, solar and battery power, command and data handling, thermal control, and a science payload.
The N² chart and functional block diagram helped us work through interfaces: who supplies power, where measurements go, which components need thermal control, and what must connect mechanically. These relationships are as much a part of the design as the CAD.
Resources, procurement, and risk
We considered component sourcing, supplier alternatives, budgets, schedules, and the risks that could force the design to change. Mission planning meant thinking beyond the preferred part to how the system could actually be developed.
We also defined verification approaches—inspection, analysis, and testing—so requirements had a path to being checked in a future build.
What I took from the reviews
MCR established the mission concept. SRR connected that concept to requirements and trades. MDR developed the mission and resource plan. PDR brought the preliminary design, interfaces, risks, and verification plans together.
I learned how much engineering happens between disciplines: asking the right questions, managing changes, and helping a team explain its decisions clearly enough for a formal review. That is the work I want this project to show.
Continue exploring.
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