This project involves the design and manufacture of an avionics chassis for Draper Labs capable of housing computational electronics that can withstand the extreme environmental conditions encountered during space ascent and atmospheric reentry. The chassis will accommodate an FPGA and a system on an SoC board along with a custom interface module for connecting avionic sensors. This interface should support common communication protocols such as CAN, SPI, and UART and operate under common voltage standards. The goal is to deliver a manufacturable chassis design validated through thermal and structural analysis, with a functional prototype demonstrating environmental survivability. The design must meet the requirements specified in NASA’s Reusable Reentry Satellite System Specification circa 1991 and provide an interface that can support a variety of sensors capable of being swapped out depending on the vehicle’s objective.

Our team collaborated with Mechanical Engineering 20 on this project.