I would like to extend my most sincere gratitude to my advisor Dr. Ahsan Choudhuri. His patience, guidance and teachings were invaluable to my development as an engineer. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to follow my dreams. I also want to thank Mr. Nate Robinson for his sound advice and supervision of this project. In addition, I want to recognize the entire staff of the cSETR because without their hard work, this project would not have been possible. I want to thank my committee for their given time and contribution to this thesis. Thank you NASA for providing the means to make all this possible. Special thanks to Mr. Jesus Betancourt-Roque, his collaboration made this project a success. Jesus R. Flores, Chance P. Garcia, Chris Navarro and the rest of my colleagues at the cSETR, thank you. Finally, I would like to give a special recognition to my family and girlfriend, their support and motivation got me through challenging times, and for that I am grateful.