I am a passionate multi-disciplinary engineer. In my teenage years, I was fascinated by computers and the whole new world of possibilities computing technologies seemed to open up. That led me to pursuit of education in Computer Science for my bachelors and masters degrees in the early 2000s. However, just as I was getting my feet wet in the software industry as a software engineer, NASA started sending the surface rovers, Spirit and Opportunity to Mars and the Cassini spacecraft started making it’s rendezvous with Saturn. Inspired by these developments, I decided to dive into space technologies. I pursued and obtained another masters degree in Aerospace Engineering by 2017. My thirst for diving deep into space technologies, especially spacecraft trajectory design, led me to the current pursuit of a Ph.D. degree in Aerospace Engineering specializing in Astrodynamics and Trajectory Design. The computer scientist in me could not stop from fusing AI and HCI technologies to help solve problems in spacecraft trajectory design. My goal in my professional life is to make a small dent in the universe of spacecraft trajectory design with AI and VR technologies and provide a user friendly alternative to the process.
When Apollo-11 landed on the Moon in July of 1969, the population of the Earth was approximately 3.6 billion. As of 2019, 50 years after the landing on the Moon, the population of Earth is approximately 7.7 billion, more than the double that of 1969. The sustainability of Earth with man-made changes to climate and wars is at a question beyond the next 50 to 100 years. Space and access to space is now, not just an aspiration, but a necessity. Humanity has to seek to expand the base of living beyond Earth. It is my hope that in the next half-century, we make as monumental of strides in space technologies as we did with Aircraft technologies and Medicine in the past century. And I hope to be at the forefront of these strides with my doctoral research work and beyond……
Dhathri Harsha Somavarapu 