Apply now for ESA Academy's CubeSat Concurrent Engineering Workshop 2024

This workshop will expose students to real-life concurrent engineering approach practices while designing a CubeSat mission. Concurrent engineering is a method of designing and developing products for the space sector. Contrary to traditional design methods, in concurrent engineering all subsystems are designed simultaneously. This is a far more efficient way of working but comes with its own unique challenge: solutions in one area that could impact the design of another subsystem must be instantly identified and communicated between teams. Although concurrent engineering is a more complex process to begin with, in effect it allows engineering discrepancies to be identified – and rectified – earlier, therefore reducing the overall design time.

ESA’s main Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) is located at ESA’s technology centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands. However, within the framework of the ESA Academy programme, ESA has developed a similar facility exclusively for educational purposes, which is located at ESA’s European Space Security and Education Centre (ESEC)-Galaxia in Transinne, Belgium. Access to this facility during the workshop complements what students learn at university by familiarising them with the concurrent engineering approach for designing a CubeSat mission.

Throughout the workshop, students will work in teams to apply Concurrent Engineering to CubeSat design, while also participating in lectures and visiting the CubeSat Support Facility – which is an assembly integration and testing facility for CubeSats. Finally, each team will get the opportunity to present the CubeSat project that they developed in the workshop to the other students and the experts. This is an enriching experience, especially because the teams participating are either considering starting or have recently started a university CubeSat project.

This is an amazing learning opportunity for university students who are planning to embark on a CubeSat project or are at the early stages of one. Teams of students wishing to participate should not be at an advanced stage in their CubeSat project. They should be either at a conceptual or preliminary phase of their CubeSat design.

During the Workshop, there will be complementary lectures about ESA’s Fly Your Satellite! (FYS!) programme and ESA good practices. Participation in this Workshop may therefore be an excellent starting point for a possible future application to the FYS! programme.

Workshop content & preliminary schedule

Guided by ESA systems engineers, the students will learn about concurrent engineering and its benefits, gaining first-hand experience with the Concurrent Model-based Engineering Tool (COMET) and identifying design drivers. To make the most of this experience, , the selected students will follow a two-hour COMET tutorial to allow them to become familiar with the tool the week before the workshop.

Students will be given mission requirements and constraints, then use concurrent engineering to create a CubeSat mission design. 

Students will be assigned to the disciplines to form groups, according to their background:

• Payload
• Configuration
• Structures and Mechanisms
• Propulsion
• Power 
• Thermal 
• Attitude and Orbital Control Systems (AOCS) 
• Trajectory analysis
• Communications
• Data handling

Within their groups, students will create a subsystem concept to achieve their given mission requirements using concurrent engineering. They will start with a first iteration of all the subsystems along with a budget that they will have to review and present. A second iteration will then be completed according to the identified function tree and product tree, and in the end, the final mission design will be presented by the students. 

Preliminary schedule

During the Workshop, the following topics will be covered:

• Introduction to Concurrent Engineering and Requirements Management
•  Get familiar with calculation sheets and Concurrent Model-based Engineering Tool (COMET)
•  Introduction to the CubeSat mission
•  Student team CubeSat projects presentations
•  Lectures about
  • CubeSat architectures
  • CubeSat reliability 
• Concurrent engineering iterations
• Introduction to ESA and early career opportunities at ESA, ESA Education and the Fly Your Satellite! Programme
• Visit of ESEC-Redu
• Final Student Presentations

Who can apply?

Students can only apply as a team and individual applications won’t be accepted.

Preferred teams are those that are considering starting, have recently started a university CubeSat project, or those teams interested in applying concurrent engineering methodologies to their CubeSat design.

CubeSat teams must comply with the following requirements:

• the CubeSat team must be from a university based in an ESA Member States, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia
• at least 4 university students are participating in the project
• the project is educational

All team members must fulfil the following eligibility criteria at the time of application: 

• aged minimum 18 years old. ESA Academy and relevant partners will only appraise applications from students who have no or limited professional experience in relevant scientific, engineering, or other space-related topics
• be a citizen of an ESA - ESA Member States, Canada*, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia
• be enrolled as a 3rd or 4th year Bachelor, Master or PhD student in a university at the time of the Workshop (not graduating before the workshop)
• be studying an engineering subject or physics.

ESA will cover the cost of accommodation and meals as well as up to 300 euros for travelling to Belgium, for each selected student.

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

How to apply

An overview of the CubeSat project shall be submitted by the team leader (e.g. university professor or academic leading the team). Students within each team shall submit their individual application as well.

Note that only a limited number of students from each team will be invited to attend the workshop. For student selection within each team, several factors will be taken into consideration, such as the overall balance of disciplines during the concurrent engineering work and the educational return for the team. Team members are not allowed to apply via multiple teams and only one proposal per university faculty or department can be considered.

Team leader only:

• Download the CubeSat Project Overview Template and fill it out
• Send it to tlp@esa.int (PDF, maximum 8 pages). The subject of the email and the file name should be in the format: CCEW2024 – CubeSat Project Overview – (Name of the team)

All team members:

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

All answers and documents should be in English (Transcript of Grades can be submitted in language of hosting university, if unavailable in English).

Due to unforeseen technical issues, the call for applications form was working intermittently on 18 December. For this reason the deadline has been extended to 2 January 2024, 23:59 CET.

For more information, please contact tlp@esa.int.