Over the 2025 summer, I participated in the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Planetary Science Summer School (PSSS), an intensive spacecraft mission design training program for graduate students and early-career professionals. As part of a team of 18 scientists and engineers, I helped design a proposed mission to Enceladus, one of Saturn’s icy moons. Our concept, called ECHO, the Enceladus Chemistry and Habitability Observer, aimed to explore the moon’s potential for supporting life. I was selected to serve as the Principal Investigator (PI) for our mission concept.
The 10-week program began virtually, with NASA JPL engineer Troy Hudson and scientist James Keene leading weekly meetings on mission design fundamentals. Each week had a new assignment that revealed the complexities and trade-offs involved in NASA mission planning, such as choosing a celestial body to study, defining feasible science objectives, calculating spacecraft mass limits, and allocating budgets for instruments.
The final week of PSSS took place in person at NASA JPL in the Team X room, the home of JPL’s rapid mission design team. As Team X was costing our instruments, fuel, and flight path, it became clear that our mission was going to exceed budget. I found myself stepping into a strong leadership role, and I made a decisive call that impressed several senior JPL engineers: when Team X’s said we were over budget, I promptly descoped an instrument.
At the end of the culminating week, our team presented the full mission proposal to a review panel of NASA scientists and engineers. I delivered the science and instrumentation portion of the final presentation and received encouraging feedback on my clarity and command of the material.
I have known about the NASA PSSS since high school, and this was my first year of eligibility. Being selected and then having the chance to serve as PI was an incredible milestone. It aligns exactly with my long-term goal of becoming a PI or project scientist on a NASA mission.
In September 2022 and March 2023, we spent one week each, totaling two weeks, discussing strategies for targeting microhabitats in situ within ice. We covered technical topics such as ideal instrumentation, the current state of available instruments, Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) for a hypothetical mission, proper sampling techniques, and how to prevent melting of the samples while ensuring the spacecraft and instruments remain warm enough to stay mobile and take accurate measurements. We also briefly discussed outreach and engagement strategies to raise awareness within the planetary science community and garner support for this type of mission. The full technical report is published here.
I spent one week in Santander, Spain, including a day trip to the Flysch GeoPark, where we observed a thin layer containing significant amounts of iridium, which has been linked to the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs.
At a workshop, we heard from many astrobiologists and engineers about the challenges of biology and space missions. Topics included the over-preparation spacecrafts for Martian environments and the importance of never discounting the atmosphere when discussing habitability, both past and present. We also discussed microbial community size detection and how many microbes might go undetected based on the capabilities of current instrumentation.
In March 2022, I participated in the Caltech Space Challenge, where we undertook the mission design of a Titan Sample Return Mission within a one-week timeframe. I was selected from a pool of 900+ applicants, and put on a 16-member team, consisting of two scientists, one graphic designer, and 13 engineers, and had an unusual lateral hierarchy. The team had a near even gender mix, and about half of us were international! Our team demonstrated remarkable cohesion, despite almost none of us meeting prior to the competition.
Throughout the Caltech Space Challenge, I played a crucial role as the interface between scientists and engineers. By assuming the role of intermediary, I allowed the other scientist to focus on our specific work while providing engineers with a clear point of contact. I was also part of the team that developed our Science and Applications Traceability Matrix. I contributed to identifying the instruments optimal for achieving the mission goals outlined in the matrix and took an active role in designing the scientific payload and mission timeline, including Concepts of Operations (CONOPS).
Our collaborative efforts and dedicated work were instrumental in our team securing victory in the challenge. The results were published in the AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum under the title “Searching for Life on Titan: The Undersea Retrieval of Titan Lake Extractions (TURTLE) Mission.”