2024 NASA Heliophysics Mission Design School Application Due October 26, 2023

2024 NASA Heliophysics Mission Design School Applications Due October 26, 2023

Enhance Your Early Career! NASA’s Heliophysics Mission Design School (HMDS) is a 3-month-long career development experience for Doctoral candidates (requires advancement to candidacy), Post-Docs or early career researched within 10 years of receiving their Ph.D., Junior faculty within 10 years of receiving their Ph.D. and with a continuous teaching faculty role in that period, and Non-research Engineering Master-level students within six to nine months of graduation who are not planning to pursue a Ph.D. will be considered on a space-available basis. U.S. Citizens or legal permanent residents (and a limited number of Foreign Nationals from non-designated countries) are eligible. Applicants from diverse backgrounds are particularly encouraged to apply. Diversity, equity and inclusion are important to us, and we strive to create a welcoming environment where participants’ contributions and unique perspectives are valued.

Learn the process of developing a science hypothesis-driven robotic space mission in a concurrent engineering environment, while getting an in-depth, first-hand look at mission design, life cycle, costs, schedule & the trade-offs inherent in each.  A NASA Science Mission Design School, HMDS is led by Jet Propulsion Laboratory in collaboration with Goddard Space Flight Center & Applied Physics Laboratory.

2024 HMDS: Preparatory Sessions February 12 – April 19. 

Culminating Week with JPL’s Team X April 22 – April 26.

Roughly equivalent in workload to a rigorous 3-hour graduate-level course, participants spend 11-12 weeks in preparatory webinars acting as a science mission team, prior to spending the final culminating week being mentored by JPL’s Advance Project Design Team, or “Team-X” to refine their science mission concept design, then present it to a mock expert review board. 

An informational webinar and Q&A about HMDS will be held on Monday, October 2, 2023, at 12:30 pm PDT. We’ll describe the HMDS program, discuss tips, and learn best practices for submitting an application to this competitively-selected experience. Registration is required.

A recording will be made available for those who were unable to attend live.