NASA Astrophysics Mission Design School 2023

NASA 2023 Astrophysics Mission Design School Applications Due September 28, 2022

Enhance Your Early Career! NASA’s first-ever Astrophysics Mission Design School (AMDS) is a 3-month career development experience to learn the development of a hypothesis-driven robotic space mission in a concurrent engineering environment. Get an in-depth, first-hand look at mission design, life cycle, costs, schedule & the inherent trade-offs. A NASA Science Mission Design School, AMDS is led by Jet Propulsion Laboratory in collaboration with Goddard Space Flight Center.

Science & engineering doctoral candidates, recent Ph.D.s, postdocs, junior faculty, & certain master’s degree students, who are U.S. Citizens or legal permanent residents (& a very limited number of Foreign Nationals from non-designated countries) are eligible.  There is no charge to attend. Applicants from diverse backgrounds are particularly encouraged to apply.  Diversity, equity & inclusion are important to us. We strive to create a welcoming environment where participants’ contributions & unique perspectives are valued.

2023 AMDS: Preparatory Webinars January 28-April 7. Culminating Week with JPL’s Team X  April 10-14.

Roughly equivalent in workload to a rigorous 3-credit graduate-level course, participants spend the majority of the first 10 weeks in preparatory webinars acting as a science mission team, prior to spending the culminating week being mentored by JPL’s Advance Project Design Team, or “Team X”, to refine their astrophysics mission concept design, then present it to a mock expert review board.  The culminating week is typically held at JPL; be aware that it might be virtual due to on-going Covid-19 pandemic conditions.

An informational session, with chat Q&A, on applying to the 2023 AMDS, will be held on July 27, 2022 at 3:00 pm ET/noon PT.  Registration is required to attend live. A recording will be made available after the session.

To learn more & apply, visit http://go.nasa.gov/missiondesignschools