RASC-AL space design team honored by department

• Darryll Pines
• Agnieszka Koscielniak
• Liz Benson
• David Akin
• Nariman Farvardin
• Richard Sickenberg

(From l to r): Dean Nariman Farvardin, Richard Sickenberg, Agnieszka Koscielniak, Liz Benson, Dr. Darryll Pines (department chair), and Dr. David Akin (team's faculty advisor)

On Monday, November 6th, the RASC-AL design team was honored for their entries during a ceremony in the Rotunda of the Kim Building. The University of Maryland Department of Aerospace Engineering was awarded first place in NASA s RASC-AL (Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concept - Academic Linkage) Forum 2006 held in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

This year's theme was Space Exploration The Next Steps. The university design projects addressed the utilization of NASA s exploration architecture to perform potential future space missions. The Clark School team of Agnieszka Koscielniak, Liz Benson, and Richard Sickenberger was awarded first place in the graduate division, beating six other teams: four entries from the Georgia Institute of Technology and one entry each from Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Alabama-Huntsville.

The Clark School team presented its design for a low-cost human spacecraft based on a term project for last fall’s ENAE 788D class. As part of the prize, they received a paid trip to present their paper and design at the International Astronautical Federation meeting in Valencia, Spain in October.

Published November 7, 2006