CubeSat Concurrent Engineering Workshop open for applications

This workshop will introduce student teams to real-world practices of the concurrent engineering approach as they design a CubeSat mission. Concurrent engineering is a special method for designing and developing products at the same time. In contrast to traditional design methods, concurrent engineering designs all subsystems synchronously. This is a far more efficient way of working, but it comes with its own challenge: solutions in one area that could impact the design of another subsystem must be immediately identified and communicated between teams. Although concurrent engineering is initially a more complex process, it actually allows technical inconsistencies to be identified and resolved earlier, reducing overall design time and costs.

Following this approach, students will be divided into disciplinary groups – such as thermal, energy or propulsion – and asked to work on the mission requirements defined by ESA experts in the role of systems engineers in this workshop. Between concurrent engineering sessions, students will also attend lectures and visit the CubeSat Support Facility – an assembly, integration and testing facility for CubeSats. At the end of the week, students present the CubeSat project they developed in the workshop to the ESA experts. In addition, students also have the opportunity to present a short summary of their own university CubeSat projects and receive valuable feedback from ESA experts. This is an enriching experience, especially because the participating teams are either considering starting a university CubeSat project or have recently started one.

This is a unique learning opportunity for university students starting or planning a CubeSat project. Student teams interested in participating should not be at an advanced stage in their CubeSat project. They should be in either a conceptual or preliminary design phase.

Workshop content

Under the guidance of ESA systems engineers, students will learn about concurrent engineering and its benefits, gain first-hand experience with Starion’s Concurrent Model-based Engineering Tool (COMET), and identify design drivers. To make the most of this experience, selected students will complete a self-paced COMET tutorial the week before the workshop to familiarize themselves with the tool.

Depending on their background, students form groups and are assigned to disciplines, such as:

• payload
• configuration
• Structures and mechanisms
• drive
• Performance
• Thermal
• Attitude and Orbital Control Systems (AOCS)
• Trajectory analysis
• communication
• Data processing

Within these groups, students create a subsystem concept to meet the given mission requirements using concurrent engineering. They start with a first iteration of all subsystems along with a budget that they must review and submit. A second iteration is then carried out using the identified function tree and product tree and at the end the final mission draft is presented by the students.

During the workshop there will be an additional lecture on ESA’s “Fly Your Satellite!” (FYS!) ESA program and best practices. Participating in this workshop can therefore be an excellent starting point for a possible future application to FYS! Program.

Tentative schedule

The following topics will be covered during the workshop:

• Presentations from the CubeSat project student team
• Introduction to concurrent engineering and requirements management
• Calculation sheets and Concurrent Model-based Engineering Tool (COMET)
• Introduction to the CubeSat mission
• Lectures about
  • CubeSat architectures
  • CubeSat reliability
• Concurrent technical iterations
• Visit from ESEC-Redu
• Final presentations by the students

Who can apply?

Students can only apply as a team. Individual applications will not be accepted.

Priority will be given to teams that are either thinking about starting a university CubeSat project, have recently initiated one, or are interested in using concurrent engineering methods in their CubeSat design.

teams must meet the following requirements:

All Team members must meet the following eligibility criteria at the time of application:

• at least 18 years old. ESA Academy and relevant partners will only evaluate applications from students who have no or limited professional experience in relevant scientific, technical or other space-related topics
• Be a citizen of an ESA Member State, Canada*, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia or Slovenia
• be enrolled at a university at the time of the workshop as a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral student in the 3rd or 4th year of study (without completing the degree before the workshop)
• You study an engineering subject or physics.

*Canadian students enrolled in a Canadian post-secondary institution may apply for additional support from the Canadian Space Agency through this Notice of Opportunity (grant applications must be submitted at least 7 weeks prior to course delivery and account creation 3 weeks prior to the deadline). This additional support is intended to cover costs not already covered by ESA for select Canadian post-secondary students.

How to apply

An overview of the CubeSat project must be submitted by the team leader (e.g. university professor or scientist leading the team). Students from each team must also submit their individual applications.

Please note that only a limited number of students from each team will be invited to participate in the workshop. Several factors are taken into account when selecting students within each team, such as the overall balance of disciplines during parallel engineering work and the educational return to the team. Team members may not apply across multiple teams and only one proposal per faculty or department of the university may be considered.

Team leader only:

All team members:

• Complete the online application form
  • Provide the name of the CubeSat team
  • Select preferred disciplines
  • Upload a letter of motivation (PDF, maximum 1 page, no images)
  • Upload a CV (Europass format, PDF, maximum 2 pages, no images)
  • Upload a formal letter of recommendation (PDF, maximum 1 page, including signature, no images) from a university professor or academic supervisor at the current university
  • Upload a copy of the study documents (PDF)

All answers and documents should be written in English (grade transcripts can be submitted in the language of the host university if they are not available in English).

The application deadline is December 6, 2024, 11:59 p.m. CET.

For further information please contact [email protected].