FIORE — Systems Engineering Study

Participant on a systems-engineering study supporting a NASA proposal for the FIORE concept: a combined very-low-frequency radio interferometer and ground-penetrating radar for the lunar farside. I contribute to requirements definition, CONOPS and interface sketches, budget and trade analyses (mass, power, data, thermal, EMC), and lightweight Python tools for simulation and verification.

image of a space exploration interface in holographic display
© Regents of the University of Colorado
Project INSIGHT

TYPE

Academic Project

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CONTEXT

UC Berkley

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YEAR

2025

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DURATION

5 months

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LOCATION

Paris, FRANCE

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LINK

ProjeCT DETAILS

Context & my role

  • This work is part of a multi-institutional study evaluating the technical feasibility of the FIORE concept and feeding inputs to a proposal intended for a NASA call for proposals.
  • I am a contributing participant (not the project lead). My role is to produce engineering analyses, simulations and draft artifacts that the team will use in proposal development and early design reviews.
  • The activity is primarily an engineering study: it translates scientific goals into technical constraints that are reviewable in a systems-engineering context.

PROJECT DETAILS

Objectives (engineering focus)

  • Convert high-level science requirements into clear, verifiable technical requirements suitable for a systems-level proposal (functional, performance and environmental).
  • Produce quantitative budgets and trade studies that justify mass, power, thermal, data and EMC allocations in the proposal.
  • Evaluate whether proposed CONOPS and operational scenarios are compatible with platform constraints and proposal timelines.

PROJECT DETAILS

Planned contributions

  • Help draft a requirements matrix linking requirements to verification methods and traceable justification.
  • Run trade studies and produce budget spreadsheets (mass, power, data rates, link budgets and thermal margins) that will appear in the proposal annexes.
  • Contribute to CONOPS development (rover stop cadence, observation and calibration sequences) and simulate their impact on instrument duty cycles and data volumes.
  • Assist in drafting basic Interface Control Document (ICD) sketches and in defining timing/data interface expectations between lander, rover and instrument subsystems.
  • Support preliminary EMC / thermal risk assessment and propose mitigations suitable for inclusion in early-phase proposal deliverables.
  • Develop lightweight Python tools and notebooks for uv-coverage tests, SNR/penetration forecasts, and simple sensitivity analyses to support numerical claims in the proposal.

PROJECT DETAILS

Methods & tools

  • Iterative systems-engineering workflow: requirements → trade studies → preliminary sizing → verification planning.
  • Combination of analytical models, reproducible spreadsheets and Python notebooks to quantify margins and produce reproducible figures for the proposal.
  • Emphasis on traceability: every budget or claim is linked back to a supporting analysis or simulation.

PROJECT DETAILS

Deliverables & skills highlighted

  • Deliverables I will help produce for the proposal package: a versioned requirements matrix, CONOPSdocument, budget spreadsheets, ICD sketches, an EMC/thermal mitigation note, and a small Python repository with simulation notebooks.
  • Skills demonstrated: requirements engineering, budget and trade analysis, interface thinking, basic EMC/thermal reasoning, and development of reproducible engineering-grade Python workflows.

Want to Know More?

Download the full project report for in-depth technical documentation and detailed findings.

Project report
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