Naveen Vetcha

Dr. Naveen Vetcha supports Centennial Challenges as a Challenge Manager through Jacobs ESSCA contract at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. He is the challenge manager for two open innovation challenges, Break the Ice Lunar Challenge and Cube Quest Challenge. He is also a part-time instructor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville’s College of Engineering. Prior to this, he worked as liquid propulsion analyst on the same contract supporting the testing and system level analysis of RS-25 Engines that power the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). Before entering propulsion world, he was a staff engineer at ManTech where he was the lead test analyst for James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Sunshield’s shape analysis. Before joining ManTech, he worked as an Application Engineer at ESI US R&D providing customer support for Multiphysics analysis using CFD-ACE+ suite of Multiphysics software.

He is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and a member of AAAS. He is an amateur astronomer and volunteer educator at Huntsville based Von Braun Astronomical Society. In July 2018 International Institute of Space Commerce recognized him as one of the 35 space professionals around the world under the age of 35 who are game changers in the space industry. Dr. Vetcha’s other awards and recognitions include Jacobs Space Exploration Group’s Apogee Award, NASA JWST’s Significant Achievement Award, NASA MSFC Propulsion department’s behind the scenes award, AIAA Greater Huntsville Section’s Young Professional of the Year Award and Jacobs ESSCA’s Volunteer of the Year award. He has authored/co-authored 19 publications in international conferences and journals.

Dr. Vetcha received MS & PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from University of California Los Angeles, MTech in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India, and BE in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University, India.