Additive Manufacturing for Next Generation Rocket Engines (3D Printing LIVE! USA 2014)

Deepak Atyam is an undergraduate student at the University of California, San Diego studying Aerospace Engineering. Atyam ignited his passion, starting in high school, after working multiple summers at various NASA centers including: the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Langley Research Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center. His work experience highlights projects that range from Curiosity's Entry Descent and Landing to ion thrusters and wind tunnel testing of aeronautical models. Atyam founded two premiere organizations at UC San Diego including Triton Rocket Club and SEDS@UCSD beginning from his freshman year in college. Atyam has successfully led an undergraduate team at UC San Diego that made the institution the first university in the world to have ever designed, printed, and tested an additively manufactured metal rocket engine and landed him on the front page of UT San Diego while featured on the Discovery Channel, NBC News, and Space.com. He is currently working on printing larger rocket engines and plans on leading the first team to successfully launch a 3D printed rocket engine.

Alex's passion is to expand the reach of human civilization and help alleviate global problems, through engineering. Specifically, Alex is interested primarily in the development of highly sophisticated aerospace structures. As part of the Moxie Center at UCSD, Alex works on the prospects of commercializing 3d printed rocket engine technology that he helped develop through the student organization, SEDS@UCSD. He has worked previously at NAVAIR at North Island, CA in the Additive Manufacturing / Reverse Engineering Lab (AMREL).

SEDS@UCSD, the local Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) chapter at UC San Diego, was founded during the 2012-2013 academic school year by Deepak Atyam, Joshua Benedictos, Kenneth Benedictos, and Benjamin Liu. The founding President, Deepak Atyam, was inspired by a colleague, working on rocket engines, to pursue further research into metal printed motors. That colleague, from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, encouraged SEDS@UCSD to develop complex rocket engines using a relatively simple precision device, a 3D printer. With the assistance and guidance of NASA, as well as other prominent individuals in the Aerospace field, SEDS@UCSD became a group of undergraduate researchers on a mission to design, print, and test the feasibility of 3D printed rocket engines. As a tight knit team of engineering students working diligently, SEDS helped make UC San Diego the first university to ever design, print, and test a metal 3D printed rocket engine. Current Vice President, Alex Finch, joined on in the first year to help push SEDS to the goal of launching a 3D printed engine. Led by Deepak Atyam and Alex Finch, they plan to launch in 2015.