Rory Dick

Developed high-fidelity, end-to-end mission design and parametric analysis tooling for optimisation of heavy launch vehicle designs such as RFA TWO.

Key result is the general application of successive convexification techniques to reformulate non-convex landing trajectory optimisation problems into convex ones. This technique allows computationally-tractable solutions to be obtained that are guaranteed to be globally optimal within the confines of a convexified solution space and, by extension, within the non-convex solution space due to the lossless nature of the manipulations applied.

An open research platform for collaboration on projects with the aim of safeguarding humanity against existential risks.

I believe that a distributed network of contributors can offer an increased impact:expenditure ratio compared to self-contained dedicated teams - for certain projects and when the work is transparent and accessible.

MPIL is a semi-automated research centre for open source existential risk-reducing projects.

Proposals such as those by SpaceX to send over 1000 vehicles containing humans and cargo to and from Mars every 24 months over the coming decades could gain large economic and programmatic benefits from a versatile cargo interface system capable of accommodating all or most types of payloads used in the development of infrastructure for the NewSpace ecosystem.

This work details a rigorous systems-engineering approach to the design of a sustainable cargo fixing assembly module (CFAM) to support reliable, high-capacity transportation of a range of planetary infrastructure cargo (agri-tech, comms, ISRU, energy, etc.) from payload integration point to planetary surface location. The system aims to reduce the cost and complexity of inter-planetary cargo transportation and lower the barrier to space access.

Published in the 21st IAA Symposium on Building Blocks for Future Space Exploration and Development and presented at the 74th IAC in Baku, Azerbaijan.