Turn your ideas into satellite concepts with the ESA Academy
Dreaming of flying a satellite into space but not sure how? Wonder no more! The ESA Education Office and ESA’s Systems and Concurrent Engineering Section have the perfect workshop for you. We are currently looking for university students who would like to participate in ESA Academy’s first Concurrent Engineering Workshop dedicated to CubeSats. The 4-day workshop will be organised between 16 and 19 January 2018 at the Training and Learning Centre in ESEC, Belgium.
In concurrent design, all stages of a satellite design take place simultaneously, through the direct collaboration of engineers and scientists from different disciplines in a dedicated and specially equipped facility. This leads to quicker, more efficient designs of space missions, but it has its own set of challenges. Solutions in one area that could impact the design in another must be identified and communicated instantly. ESA’s main Concurrent Design Facility(CDF) is located at ESA’s ESTEC centre in the Netherlands. In collaboration with the engineers running it, ESA’s Education Office has developed a similar CDF for training purposes at ESEC, as part of the ESA Academy.
The “CubeSats Concurrent Engineering Workshop” will introduce student teams to the concurrent design of a CubeSat mission. The workshop can help to better prepare those universities that are planning to embark on a CubeSat project or are at the early stages of one. Teams wishing to participate do not need to be at an advanced stage in their CubeSat project. They can be at a conceptual and/or preliminary phase of their CubeSat design. Complementary lectures will also be offered to become acquainted with ESA’s Fly Your Satellite!(FYS) programme as well as ESA good practices. Participation in the workshop may therefore be an excellent starting point for a possible future application to the FYS programme.
The workshop
Workshop participants will be divided into groups of two or three students and will be assigned to one of the following disciplines:
- systems engineering,
- mission analysis,
- configuration & structures,
- power,
- communications & onboard computer and data handling (OBDH),
- attitude and orbit control system (AOCS), or
- thermal.
Students will then be given CubeSat mission requirements and constraints. Guided by ESA system engineers, they will use the Concurrent Engineering approach and tools to perform a system ‘flow down’, which takes the mission requirements and translates them into system and subsystem requirements. Several possible solutions will arise from this analysis, and the students will compare these to understand the trade-offs of each design solution. Eventually, after several concurrent engineering iterations, the students will come to a final concept design that they will present and defend, discipline per discipline, to ESA experts.
The deadline for applications is 11 December 2017, 23:59 CET.
Who can apply?
Preferred teams are those that are considering to start, or have recently started a university CubeSat project, and/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 or Associate State*
- At least 4 university students are participating in the project
- The project is educational
All team members willing to participate in the Workshop must fulfil the following eligibility criteria at the time of application:
- be aged between 18 and 32;
- be a citizen of an ESA Member or Associate State*;
- be enrolled as a full-time 3rd / 4th year Bachelor, Master or PhD student in a university (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 200 euros for travelling to Redu, Belgium, for each selected student.
Note
Student teams that are close to or have already consolidated their detailed design and are interested in receiving ESA’s support during the manufacturing, assembly, integration, testing, launch, and operating phases of their mission can apply to future editions of the Fly Your Satellite! programme. Keep checking ESA’s Education website to be updated on the next opportunity!
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.
Team leader:
- Download the CubeSat Project Overview Template and fill it out;
- Send it to esa.academy @ esa.int (PDF, maximum 8 pages). The subject of the email and the file name should be in the format ‘CCEW – CubeSat Project Overview – (Name of the team)’;
Team members:
- Fill in the online application form ;
- Provide CubeSat team name;
- Select preferred subsystems;
- Upload a motivation letter (PDF, maximum 1 page, no images);
- Upload a CV (PDF, maximum 2 pages, no images);
- Upload an official copy of academic records (PDF, in English, with the university stamp).
For more information, please contact esa.academy @ esa.int
