Applications Due 4 November 2024

Offered by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, NASA’s Astrophysics Mission Design School (AMDS) is a 3-month long career development experience to learn the development of a hypothesis-driven robotic space mission in a concurrent engineering environment while getting an in-depth, first-hand look at instrument design, mission life cycle, costs, schedule & the inherent trade-offs.

Engineering students close to completion of their MS degree, science & engineering, Doctoral candidates, recent PhDs, Postdocs, & Junior Faculty who are U.S. Citizens or Legal Permanent Residents are eligible. Applicants from diverse backgrounds are particularly encouraged to apply; we highly value diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Preparatory Sessions: 6 February — 17 April 2025

Culminating Week at JPL with Team-X: 21 – 25 April 2025

AMDS is roughly equivalent in workload to a rigorous 3-credit graduate course, requiring an average effort of 10-12 hours per week. Participants act as a space science mission team during the first 10 weeks of preparatory webinars, with the final culminating week mentored at JPL by JPL’s Advance Project Design Team or Team-X for refining the mission concept design & presenting it to a mock review board of NASA Center experts.

Register here for AMDS Application Q&A Webinar on 7 October 2024 from 6p – 7p Eastern (3p – 4p Pacific).

For more information and to apply, visit: https://go.nasa.gov/missiondesignschools