Time 2pm EST, Friday February 20th, 2026

Presenting Live via Zoom

Mars Transit and the MARVL Project

With humans soon retuning to the moon, the next stop could be Mars. The question becomes how we will get there? This presentation will show the time it has taken for current chemical propulsion systems to deliver spacecraft to different parts of our solar system and looks at what the duration will be to Mars if Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) is used. The components for the NEP Mars vehicle will be presented. It will conclude with information about the Modular Assembled Radiators for NEP VehicLes (MARVL) project, which is focusing on a subsystem of the Primary Heat Rejection Subsystem of the NEP vehicle.    

After Amanda Stark graduated from GVSU in 2016 with her Bachelor of Science in Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering, she accepted both a NASA Pathway Student Trainee position and an acceptance to Old Dominion University’s Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering program. In 2020 Mrs. Stark defended her master’s thesis and became a full-time engineer at NASA Langley Research Center in the Thermal Group within the Structural and Thermal System Branch. Some of her work includes being the thermal engineer on two cubesat projects and a lunar lander payload. Recently, she has been the project lead for the Modular Assembled Radiators for Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) VehicLes project.