This undergraduate course builds upon the dynamics content of Unified Engineering, a sophomore course taught in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. Vector kinematics are applied to translation and rotation of rigid bodies. Newtonian and Lagrangian methods are used to formulate and solve equations of motion. Additional numerical methods are presented for solving rigid body dynamics problems. Examples and problems describe applications to aircraft flight dynamics and spacecraft attitude dynamics.

This digital scavenger hunt challenges you to find aircraft at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center that have animal names.

This paper version of our popular scavenger hunt challenges you to find aircraft at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center that have animal names.

The Human Spaceflight collection spans decades of achievements from the first U.S. manned Mercury missions through Apollo, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station.

In this Explore on Your Own activity, students will design a rover to explore the surface of Mars and determine if there are any signs of past life.

Students acquire a basic understanding of the science and engineering of space travel as well as a brief history of space exploration. They learn about the scientists and engineers who made space travel possible and briefly examine some famous space missions. Finally, they learn the basics of rocket science (Newton's third law of motion), the main components of rockets and the U.S. space shuttle, and how engineers are involved in creating and launching spacecraft.

This is an on-board guidance computer used in the Gemini program. In contrast to Mercury capsules, which had no on-board computing capability, Gemini spacecraft required an on-board computer to assist in rendezvous operations and in maneuvers to change its orbit. Both were necessary steps to lunar expeditions undertaken with Project Apollo.

This lesson presents characteristics of spacecraft models on mars to see how well they meet design requirements and then presents a design challenge for students.

"Family of the Sun," which tells the story of the planets in our solar system. After the story, do a craft to make a solar system playset.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The first human spaceflight to Mars is expected to take place sometime within the next decade, and its success will be highly dependent on the health of its crew. The human microbiome, or the community of microorganisms inhabiting the body, has critical effects on human health, but how the journey to another planet will affect it has yet to be determined. During a space mission, the crew will experience microgravity, increased cosmic radiation, isolation, food limitations, and other stressors. While data from simulations and the International Space Station suggest that the human microbiome may be resilient to these conditions, frequent monitoring during the spaceflight will still be necessary to safeguard crew health. Microbiome perturbations will need to be actively prevented, and the establishment of a computer-based warning system will allow microbe-related disease to be quickly detected..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

In this Explore on Your Own activity, students will watch a short video about landing spacecraft on Mars and then answer some questions.

Celena Dopart is a human systems factors engineer. Learn about her path into engineering, and what inspires her.

STEM in 30 looks at the Orion, a spacecraft built to take humans farther than they have ever gone before.

Explore the engineering behind landing on other planets and what is in store for future missions.

In this episode of STEM in 30 learn about commercial spaceflight and the rockets that will get them into space.

Satellite Engineering introduces students to subsystem design in engineering spacecraft. The course presents characteristic subsystems, such as power, structure, communication and control, and analyzes the engineering trades necessary to integrate subsystems successfully into a satellite. Discussions of spacecraft operating environment and orbital mechanics help students to understand the functional requirements and key design parameters for satellite systems.

Students are introduced to the engineering challenges involved with interplanetary space travel. In particular, they learn about the gravity assist or "slingshot" maneuver often used by engineers to send spacecraft to the outer planets. Using magnets and ball bearings to simulate a planetary flyby, students investigate what factors influence the deflection angle of a gravity assist maneuver.

An introduction to our solar system the planets, our Sun and Moon. To begin, students learn about the history and engineering of space travel. They make simple rockets to acquire a basic understanding Newton's third law of motion. They explore energy transfer concepts and use renewable solar energy for cooking. They see how engineers design tools, equipment and spacecraft to go where it is too far and too dangerous for humans. They explore the Earth's water cycle, and gravity as applied to orbiting bodies. They learn the steps of the design process as they create their own models of planetary rovers made of edible parts. Students conduct experiments to examine soil for signs of life, and explore orbit transfers. While studying about the International Space Station, they investigate the realities of living in space. Activities explore low gravity on human muscles, eating in microgravity, and satellite tracking. Finally, students learn about the context of our solar system the universe as they learn about the Hubble Space Telescope, celestial navigation and spectroscopy.

To understand the challenges of satellite construction, student teams design and create model spacecraft to protect vital components from the harsh conditions found on Mercury and Venus. They use slices of butter in plastic eggs to represent the internal data collection components of the spacecraft. To discover the strengths and weaknesses of their designs, they test their unique thermal protection systems in a planet simulation test box that provides higher temperature and pressure conditions.