102 university students take part in the Concurrent Engineering Challenge 2024
Venusian atmosphere was the target of ESA Academy’s Concurrent Engineering Challenge 2024. Would participants be able to use the Concurrent Engineering approach to design a mission to explore this mysterious faraway world? 30 university students from 13 different ESA Member States rose to the challenge, and travelled to ESA Academy’s Training and Learning Facility, ESEC-Galaxia, Belgium, from 15 to 19 April 2024. On-hand to provide guidance were three ESA experts from ESA’s Systems and Concurrent Engineering Section.
This cohort of students was also joined by three other groups, participating remotely in three European universities: National Higher French Institute of Aeronautics and Space - ISAE-SUPAERO (France), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens – NKUA (Greece) and the University of Portsmouth (UK). Each university developed its own Concurrent Engineering Facility (CEF), installed especially for the Challenge. In total, 102 university students participated, with the ultimate goal of familiarising the next generation of space scientists and engineers with the Concurrent Engineering approach and the added bonus of helping universities to develop their CEFs. Organisers from National and Kapodistrian University of Athens – NKUA stated: “Participating in CEC 2024 was a valuable experience for both the university and the students. It helped the students learn and adapt to the concurrent engineering approach and become familiar with the different tools and Software like COMET. Additionally, it was a stepping stone for our university to introduce such courses in its study program."
Importantly, the four student groups did not compete against each other. Instead, they used video conferencing and a live forum to share each day’s progress, raise any particular difficulties they were facing, and receive helpful input from the participants in the other groups.
In each CEF, students were divided into teams of two to five in order to cover the different disciplines: Configuration, Structures, Propulsion, Trajectory Analysis, Attitude & Orbit Control Subsystems, Power, Thermal, Communications & Data Handling and Mechanisms.
On Monday morning, all locations connected through video conferencing for the first time to get an introduction to the Concurrent Engineering approach, prior to attendees experimenting with the Concurrent Model-based Engineering Tool (COMET) that they would be using throughout the week to share design data with each other. To round off day one, the students were introduced to the other locations and their facilities. Finally, the goal of the week was revealed: design a mission to Venus with main goal to deliver and deploy several 1U CubeSats to Venusian atmosphere!
Motivated with their new knowledge, the groups proceeded to perform a first Concurrent Engineering iteration, deriving mission phases, operative modes, functions and start working on different subsystem designs by making initial computations and systems budgets. Each group then shared their progress with their colleagues located at the other CEFs. Comparisons and discussions were made. Before long, potential critical disciplines were identified in the areas of trajectory selection, propulsion and power design. Improvements were required!
During the following days, all students worked hard to overcome all the difficulties and challenges and develop further their designs.
On the final day, each group froze their results and then presented their mission plans. It was fascinating to compare designs and different methods of overcoming shared problems.
The ESEC group called their mission Planetary Exploration Deployment and Research Operations – Venus (PEDRO-V). ISAE-SUPAERO call their mission V-MAX (Venus Material Atmosphere Experiment), NKUA called their mission DIVA (Dive Into Venus Atmosphere) while students from University of Portsmouth and Surrey called their mission Gareth-P. Overall the mission intended to send a carrier spacecraft to Venus to deliver and deploy several 1U CubeSats carrying different payloads in the Venusian atmosphere. The goal was to study the behaviour of various materials under the harsh environmental conditions of Venus while performing tests on the different temperatures, acidity and pressure levels of the atmosphere.
Despite the challenges, all groups were able to meet the basic mission requirements and constraints putting a lot of effort, and all designs had strong and unique features. Additionally, everyone agreed that concurrent engineering is a very effective approach that can be used both in a professional setting as well as academia.
A final word from one of the participating students encapsulated the week nicely: "The Challenge gave me the opportunity to learn about Concurrent Engineering and how this is used on the actual design of the missions. The exchange of ideas of information with the other universities was a unique opportunity and make me feel that we work all together towards one goal. I had the chance to learn a lot of things from ESA experts, my teammates but also from the other teams on the other three universities".
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Contact: tlp@esa.int