CORA: Ceres Ocean Reconnaissance and Analysis

JPL conducts Planetary Science Summer School every summer in two sessions. I was selected in the 2024 session to be part of a 17 member team. We designed a New Frontier mission to explore how far the most accessible relict ocean world, Ceres, can climb on the ladder of life. Over the 10 week period, we learned mission design skills like science traceability matrix and applied them towards our mission. The culminating week is spent at JPL, where we finalize the mission architecture while working alongside Team X.