Liam Webster Email & Phone Number

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States

Ithaca, New York, United States

• Collaborate with a team of 40+ undergraduate students in order to design, manufacture, and launch a fully reusable high-powered rocket that competes yearly in the Spaceport America Cup.• Train 15 underclassmen students the principles of analyzing stress in solid static structures and how to use CAD and FEA software to design and validate structural components.• Advise, review and validate mechanical component and system designs using CAD and FEA software.• Provide and maintain technical documentation utilizing Jira and Confluence.

Ithaca, New York, United States

• Managed an eight-member subteam focusing on structural design, dynamics modeling and system integration.• Created models of launch vehicle trajectory and designed the system-level layout of the rocket in order to maximize performance and reach an altitude of 10,000 ft.• Optimized our rocket’s boat tail profile to reduce net drag by creating and analyzing a 3D model of the rocket in ANSYS Fluent.• Oversaw the design and manufacture of aluminum, steel and fiberglass components for the rocket’s airframe and internal structure.

Ithaca, New York

• Redesigned the rocket’s avionics bay to reduce both excess mass and vibration between the structure and PCBs during launch.• Manufactured, tested and implemented black powder based blast charge canisters for rocket stage separation.• Designed and analyzed piston-based system for pneumatic stage separation using ANSYS Static Structural finite element analysis software.

Ithaca, New York, United States

• Collaborated with graduate school faculty to develop a 12U CubeSat proposal, following NASA Pioneers guidelines, to characterize the radio frequency environment on the far side of the Moon which will be submitted to Acta Astronautica.• Managed development of satellite power budget using Excel and MATLAB to ensure peak and average power requirements would be satisfied in transit and in lunar orbit for the mission lifespan.• Defined the power generation requirements for a 12U CubeSat in lunar orbit and collaborated with industry suppliers on solar array and PSU design and integration.• Evaluated and designed shielding methods to suppress satellite RF emissions by at least 80 dB in the 1-200 MHz frequency range in order to conduct valid radio astronomy.