Vinayak Manoj Nair Texas A&M · Aerospace Engineering · May 2027

Engineering from structure to software.

I design and analyse hardware, write the software that flies it, and hold the requirements that keep both honest. Every project here carries the calculations, models, test results and decisions behind it.

Show me the work Run a model Technical capabilities Say hello

TAMU Aerospace Engineering BS/MS Fast Track Open to relocation

Mechanical
CAD & FEA Controls
Estimation & simulation Systems
Requirements & trades Software
Embedded & HIL

Mechanical / FEA+0.151 MSreleased synthetic fitting margin Controls / Simulation50 / 50finite seeded simulation runs Systems / ISS4 payloadsthrough SCR, SRR, and PDR Software / V&V9 / 9test suites passed on hardware

01 / Capabilities

Core engineering areas

Four areas I work in, each carrying its own projects and its own evidence — not one specialism with three footnotes.

The whole matrix

01 / MECHANICAL●

Mechanical Design & FEA

Parametric CAD, GD&T, load-path definition, lug hand checks, static, thermal, modal and nonlinear finite-element analysis, mesh convergence and margin assessment.

02 / CONTROLS●

Controls, Estimation & Simulation

State estimation, target tracking, PID control, actuator modeling, closed-loop simulation, and uncertainty analysis.

03 / SYSTEMS●

Systems Engineering

Requirements decomposition and traceability, SCR/SRR/PDR review packages, interface control, engineering change requests, V&V planning, configuration control and trade studies.

04 / SOFTWARE●

Flight Software & Test

C++17 on embedded Linux, command and telemetry protocols, watchdogs and FDIR, hardware-in-the-loop rigs, fault injection, deterministic logging and automated regression.

02 / The stack

What I build with

Tools I have used to produce delivered analysis, code or hardware — not a reading list. Click any of them to see the project that proves it.

All 28 tools

03 / Engineering case studies

Featured projects

Each project is documented as an engineering report: problem, requirements, architecture, design decisions, results, tradeoffs, and what I would change.

Every project

PRJ-08

ANSYS equivalent-stress contour for the AeroFrame-DT pylon attachment fitting.

Mechanical / StructuresDocumented

AeroFrame-DT: Pylon Attachment Trade Study

Parametric CAD · lug hand calculations · nonlinear solid FEA

Engineering question

Which geometry variable controls a forward pylon attachment fitting, and how should the decision change when the governing failure mode changes?

Outcome

A five-variant e/D study located the mode crossover near 1.35, correlated elastic response within 1.7%, and retained the unresolved plastic-strain inconsistency visibly.

529.7 kN

Load envelope

Geometry variants

1.7%

Scaling deviation

Frozen variables

ANSYS MechanicalParametric CADLug analysisAPDLGD&T

See how I sized it

PRJ-01

Concept visualization

Estimation / AutonomyActive

GHOST-X: Occlusion-Tolerant Target Estimation

Visual-inertial estimation · target tracking · embedded Linux

Engineering question

How can an embedded vehicle estimate itself and a moving target through GNSS loss and visual occlusion without coupling both failure modes?

Outcome

A 9-state ESKF handles ego-state while an IMM tracker coasts the target through dropouts, with consistency testing and documented hardware limits.

ESKF states

200 Hz

Propagation

Design revisions

Flaws resolved

C++ESKFIMMPX4 SITLRaspberry Pi

See how it tracks

PRJ-06

Concept visualization

Systems EngineeringActive

TAMU-SPIRIT: ISS Payload Systems Engineering

Requirements · configuration control · NASA design reviews

Engineering question

How do four experiments move through tightly coupled technical, safety, schedule, and interface constraints toward an ISS flight?

Outcome

Maintained milestone compliance through SCR, SRR and PDR while coordinating change control and reducing thermal design risk through material trades.

100%

Milestone compliance

ISS experiments

Review gates

240 °C

Thermal band

RequirementsSCR / SRR / PDRTrade studiesConfiguration control

See how it shipped

PRJ-02

Concept visualization

Flight Software / V&VHIL verified

ASTRA-OS: Flight-Software Assurance Framework

C++17 flight segment · Python ground segment · Raspberry Pi target

Engineering question

What evidence turns a flight-software implementation into a defensible claim about packet integrity, fault response, and target behavior?

Outcome

A complete command, telemetry, fault-injection and regression stack exercised on x86-64 and aarch64 hardware with committed test evidence.

9/9

CTest suites

5/5

Scenarios

25/25

MC regressions

40%

CRC overhead cut

C++17CMake / CTestCRC-16Fault injectionFDIR

See how it is proven Step onto the bench

04 / Interactive

Run the engineering yourself

Every case study carries a model you can drive in the browser. Each one states what it demonstrates and what it does not evidence, so the repository results stay separate from the teaching model.

Every case study

GHOST-X RunTrack a target through a measurement gapSet the occlusion length, switch IMM mixing off, watch the covariance grow.AeroFrame-DT RunSweep the edge-distance tradeMove e/D and watch the governing failure mode change hands at 1.35.ASTRA-OS RunFrame a packet, then corrupt itReal CRC-16, real acceptance order, live FDIR escalation.Fixed-Wing SIL RunFly the altitude captureRetune the loop, add gust, run the dispersion campaign.ORBITALIS-RPO RunDrive the autonomy guardsChange range, health and approval; the mode transitions follow the real guards.TAMU-SPIRIT RunTrade the thermal pairPick a material pair across the LEO cycling band, then step the review gate.Rocket Landing GNC RunFly the powered descentOne point mass, one guidance loop — land it before the propellant runs out.Interception Robot RunBuild the latency budgetStage-by-stage timing against the 100 ms target, and the lag it buys.MD-11 CAD RunDrive the assembly parametersSketch parameters rebuild the three-view; suppress groups or explode it.

05 / Engineering experience

Engineering experience

The full record

Jan 2026 to Present

Spacecraft Systems Engineer, TAMU-SPIRIT Capstone

Aegis Aerospace / ISS payload program · College Station, TX

Maintained 100% milestone compliance for 4 ISS-bound experiments targeting a Sep 2028 SpaceX Dragon launch, managing engineering change requests and NASA compliance tracking through SCR, SRR and PDR government design reviews.
Reduced thermal design risk on the DASH payload through material trades and thermal analysis across −120 °C to +120 °C LEO cycling.

Aug to Dec 2025

Controls & Embedded Systems Engineer

BLNC Turtle Robotics · College Station, TX

Reduced motor validation errors by standardizing bench-test procedures in LabVIEW and maintaining as-built documentation.
Achieved full autonomous stabilization of a two-wheeled inverted-pendulum rover built from component level, using cascaded PID control.

Dec 2023 to Dec 2024

Undergraduate Research Assistant

TAMU ACE Lab, Dr. Sasangohar · College Station, TX

Cut manual analysis time 40% and accelerated report delivery by 2 days with a Python pipeline processing 5,000+ data points per run.

06 / Repositories

Selected engineering code

Every project above has a repository. This list is pulled live from GitHub.

XpiredRuby / … repositories Loading current repository data… Browse the repos

ghost-vins-eskfPublicOcclusion-tolerant target estimation: IMM tracker, ROS 2, Raspberry Pi hardware campaign.C++ AstraSim-FSWPublicSpacecraft-style flight software with command/telemetry framing, FDIR and a regression campaign.C++ aeroframe-dtPublicStructural substantiation: parametric CAD, lug hand checks, nonlinear FEA, fatigue and damage tolerance.Python orbitalis-rpoPublicAutonomous rendezvous and proximity operations with a frozen software-in-the-loop campaign.C++ f16-flight-simPublicFixed-wing flight controls SIL with actuator limits, seeded sensor errors and a Monte Carlo campaign.Python vin-portfolioPublicThis site. Static HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no framework and no build step.HTML

07 / AvailabilityOPEN

Spacecraft systems, software, mechanical design, controls. I work across all four.

I am looking for roles in spacecraft and mission systems, engineering software, mechanical design and analysis, or guidance and control — and I can walk through a CAD decision, a derivation, a verification result or a design trade in whichever of those a conversation needs.

Email meLinkedIn GitHub All contact details