Daniel McCammon discusses Multidisciplinary Optimization in a paper for IAC 2020

Daniel McCammon, VP Engineering, will be presenting his team’s paper entitled “Multidisciplinary Optimization for Nano-Satellite Launch Vehicles” at this year’s International Astronautical Congress (IAC). The project focuses on developing a new, automated method to optimize small vehicle geometry. Within the literature, most of the previous work in this area has been for the multidisciplinary optimization of large vehicles, which can’t be scaled down to nanosatellites due to the mass models used. The team’s Python algorithms, however, have developed new mass models and MDO methodology for the minimization of gross lift-off weight for a given payload mass and vehicle architecture. Overall, this software led to a potential launch vehicle design that was up to 10% lighter than previous manual results. This reduced-mass model will allow for the refinement of vehicle capabilities, thus reducing cost and increasing performance. For more information, check out the IAC’s agenda at https://www.iafastro.org/events/iac/iac-2020/technical-programme/technical-sessions.html.