M. Choudhary and A. Bergese selected to present the DOLPHIN Mission at International Conferences

Megha Choudhary and Alessandra Bergese, Master’s students in Aerospace Engineering from ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse, France, have been selected to present their work at the upcoming external page Space Cost Engineering Conference. This event, held on October 3rd and 4th in Toulouse, serves as a vital platform for the exchange of best practices, methods, trends, and lessons within the cost engineering community. The conference addresses the evolving nature of cost engineering in the space domain.

They will present their Research Project, “Optimising the DOLPHIN mission: A Feasibility Study using Cost Engineering Principles”, developed in collaboration with ETH Zurich student Pietro Gentile and supervised by Prof. Sterken from ETH and Prof. Sanchez from ISAE-SUPAERO. Megha and Alessandra’s work focuses on the comprehensive system design and cost optimization of the DOLPHIN spacecraft, an interplanetary mission to study cosmic dust particles. Their research demonstrates the feasibility of conducting this mission within ESA's F-Class mission cost constraints.

In addition to their presentation, Megha and Alessandra won the student poster challenge, with their poster, titled “DOLPHIN Mission Design: A Feasibility Study”. This challenge invited students aged 18 to 30 to propose innovative project ideas related to the space sector and cost engineering.

Not only this, they were also awarded a student grant by the 3AF to represent France at the external page 75th International Astronautical Congress to be held in Milan from the 14th-18th October, 2024. Their paper titled “The DOLPHIN mission concept: Uncovering the nature of cosmic dust” will be presented on the 14th of October at 17:30 in the Symposium: E2. 52nd IAF Student Conference.