We are TAMU SSS (SEDS Solar Sail) - the first ever student-led solar sail project - and hopefully, with your help, the first such project to successfully launch a solar sail into space. We strongly believe that students too have a role to play in innovating and advancing the state of art of space technology, and this team is the embodiment of that belief. Of course, the challenges that we face are numerous, and success is far from guaranteed. But we are optimistic that with the right research, outreach, and engineering rigor, we will ultimately be able to design a mission that overcomes these challenges. 

Since our inception in September 2024, we have been hard at work laying the groundwork for our solar sail mission. Throughout the 2024-2025 academic year, we developed and successfully executed a four-phase plan consisting of in-depth research & expert outreach to identify the most feasible mission concept for us to execute. For 2025-2026, our goal is to go full steam ahead on mission design work, as well as R&D into the novel sail deployment system that we are developing. However, we will need some help if we are going to accomplish what we have set out to accomplish - which is where you come in! If you are a fellow student with skills/experience that you think would be valuable to the team - please apply! If you are an industry professional who would like to hear more about our project and provide some input on it - please reach out! More information can be found below for those interested!

Members

Technical - Elaina Moss (Lead), Francis La, Ansh Panchal, Adithi Iyer Ganesan, Miguel Vargas, Christian Coffey, Manuel Carrera, Steven Alvarado, Andre Verspieren

Logistical - Owen Krackau (Lead), Sushanth Balaraman, Sushant Chadha, Olly West, Andre Ghosh

Outreach - Anthony Zambrano (Lead), Vedant Bhat, Xanthe Mentis, Aakash Haque, Pooja Marella, Uzair Ali

Project Managers - Adam Zheng, Elaina Moss

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Daniel Selva - Associate Professor, Aerospace Engineering