AA 131: Space Flight

Course Description

This class is all about how to build a spacecraft. It is designed to introduce undergraduate engineering students to the engineering fundamentals of conceiving, designing, implementing, and operating satellites and other space systems. Topics include orbital dynamics, attitude dynamics, mission design, and subsystem technologies. The space environment and the seven classic spacecraft subsystems - propulsion, attitude control and navigation, structure, thermal, power, telemetry and command, and payload - will be explored in detail. Prerequisites: Freshman-level physics, basic calculus and differential equations, AA 100 (Introduction to Aeronautics and Astronautics).