NASA Selects Winning Student Design For Titan Aerial Vehicle

http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2003/03_55AR.html

Jonas Dino
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Phone: 650/604-5612 or 650/604-9000
E-mail:

August 6, 2003

RELEASE: 03-55AR

NASA SELECTS WINNING STUDENT DESIGN FOR TITAN AERIAL VEHICLE

Flying rovers may someday explore Saturn's moon, Titan, thanks to
futuristic aerial vehicle designs submitted by top minority university
students for a nationwide NASA design contest.

NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., recently announced
that a student team from California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA)
submitted the winning design for NASA's Titan VTOL (vertical take-off and
landing) Design Contest 2003. The contest invited minority student teams
from across the country to design an aerial vehicle that will be capable
of exploring Titan, Saturn's largest moon. On Aug. 7-8, 2003, members of
the winning CSULA team will present their design to a panel of experts in
the fields of VTOL vehicles and planetary exploration at NASA Ames.

"I was truly impressed by the quality of the proposed designs. The results
of this competition help to bring the exciting concept of planetary
exploration using autonomous aerial vehicles closer to reality.
Congratulations to all of the competitors and especially to the CSULA Team,"
said Ed Aiken, chief of the Rotorcraft Division at NASA Ames.

CSULA students Uche Ofoma, Shigeru Matsuyama, Josue Cruz, Josh Ward, Chunlei
He and Amir Massoudi, and faculty advisor Dr. Chivey Wu from the school's
Department of Mechanical Engineering, designed an innovative aerial vehicle
capable of piercing the thick haze that envelops Titan to explore one of
the solar system's most mysterious objects. Titan is the only moon in our
solar system that has a substantial atmosphere, believed to be similar to
the atmosphere of early Earth.

A team from the University of Texas, El Paso, placed second and students
from Alabama A&M University came in third. The contest is designed to
encourage minority students to continue their interest in science,
technology, and space exploration with students being encouraged to share
and present their ideas at student conferences.

Future missions, possibly using student VTOL designs, will build upon the
2004 NASA and European Space Agency's Cassini space mission to Saturn and
the Huygens atmospheric probe to Titan. The development of a VTOL vehicle
can potentially present a significant value to future follow-on scientific
missions beyond the Cassini and Huygens mission.

The NASA Ames Equal Opportunity Programs Office provided funding for the
Titan VTOL Design Contest workshops through a cooperative agreement
through NASA's Minority University Research and Education Program and
Integrated Space Technologies, Inc of Huntsville, Ala. The Rotorcraft
Division at NASA Ames provided the student teams with technical support
at design workshops at NASA Ames and over the Internet.

"We were very pleased to offer this opportunity to outstanding minority
students from various universities throughout the country. Students who
could potentially be our 'researchers of tomorrow'," said Adriana Cardenas,
director of the NASA Ames Equal Opportunity Programs Office.

To view the student design entries and to get more information about the
competition, visit:

http://www.integratedspacetechnologies.com/Titan.

For more information about NASA's Minority University Research and
Education Program, visit:

http://mured.nasaprs.com/index.cfm

For more information about the Rotorcraft Division at NASA Ames, visit:

http://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/ar/rotorcraft.html

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