JAXA Delegation Visit CDF
Recently a delegation from the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) visited the Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) as part of their tour of ESTEC. The CDF has previously worked closely with JAXA on a number of studies and even had a JAXA engineer embedded in the Systems Division for several months.
Therefore the JAXA delegation which consisted of engineers and managers, were aware of the CDF and its capabilities which made the presentation and discussion more focussed on interoperability and common tools and shared processes. JAXA has also experimented with concurrent engineering techniques and were interested in the ESA experience with the new Open Concurrent Design Tool and how this allows ESA to collaborate with other design centres working towards a common design.