Apply for the Concurrent Engineering Workshop 2024
In brief
ESA’s Education Office is looking for 28 talented and motivated university students with an engineering or physics background, to participate in the ESA Academy’s Concurrent Engineering Workshop. That’s a five-day workshop to be held at ESA Academy’s Training and Learning Facility in ESEC-Galaxia, Belgium, from 16 to 20 September 2024.
In-depth
This workshop will expose students to real-life concurrent engineering approach practices while designing a mission. 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 mission.
Throughout the workshop, students will attend lectures on Concurrent Engineering and work in teams to apply Concurrent Engineering to their mission design.
Workshop content
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 COMET tutorial to allow them to become familiar with the tool the week before the workshop.
Students will be given mission requirements and constraints, and then use concurrent engineering to create a mission design. For the first time, cost engineering principles will also be integrated into the workshop’s agenda. Participants will be invited to apply them practically, aiding in the costing of their projects.
Students will be assigned to the disciplines to form groups, according to their backgrounds:
- Structures and Mechanisms
- Configuration
- Power
- Thermal
- Attitude and Orbital Control Systems (AOCS)
- Propulsion
- Trajectory analysis
- Communications and Data Handling
- Ground Segment
Within their subsystem, students will create a concept to achieve their given mission and will have to budget their project. They will do several iterations of all the subsystems, and review and present their ongoing work.
Who can apply?
To participate, students 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 Member State, 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.
Selected students will be required to attend the entire 4.5-day workshop at ESEC. They will be sponsored by ESA to cover accommodation and meals, as well as up to 300 Euros for travelling to Belgium.
ESA is committed to achieving diversity and creating an inclusive professional environment. To this end, we welcome proposals and applications from all eligible candidates irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, beliefs, age, disability, or other characteristics. The ESA Academy strongly encourages inclusiveness within its programmes and within participating teams, which contributes to the enrichment of our programme.
Whenever possible, we seek to accommodate individuals with disabilities by providing the necessary support, either digitally or at the location of the training. In case of any questions or specific needs, please reach out to tlp@esa.int to get assistance or advice during the application process.
How to apply
- Fill in the application form;
- 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 (if it is not possible to receive the recommendation letter from your referee, please ask them to send a recommendation email to tlp@esa.int before the application deadline);
- Upload a copy of your Transcript of Grades from the two previous semesters, or, if not available, the previous graded academic year (PDF).
All answers and documents should be in English (Transcript of Grades can be submitted in the language of the hosting university, if unavailable in English).
* 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.
The deadline for applications is 8 July 2024, 23:59 CET.
For more information, please contact tlp@esa.int.