This module will provide the students a background to mission design and development for satellites, the tradeoffs required for a satellite mission and the various design and test stages that need to be considered. The team will work through a development cycle for a satellite mission and demonstrate their solution to a set mission with given requirements.

3 x 1 hr lectures

3 x 1 hr Seminars

Weekly meetings with supervisor.

Weekly meetings as a team without supervisor.

None

None

60% Group Final Report (40% Group mark and 20% Individual mark (demonstrated by an indication of the work undertaken for the report)

10% group interim report

10% group interim presentation

10% self-assessment contribution from each student within the team

10% group final presentation

It is the default expectation that all courses will offer opportunities for reassessment or deferred assessment. Where it is not possible to offer this in some assessment components, the grade achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade, and any exceptions for this course are described below.

[No exceptions]

The aims of this course are to:

■ introduce students to the practical issues involved in a full life cycle space mission team design project, alongside the many different trade-offs these teams are required to make and negotiate

■ introduce industry standards related to working within the space industry (including a review of the ethics, legal, health and safety, codes of practise, and risk management)

■ enable students to demonstrate their knowledge with regards to satellite mission design

■ Carry out trade-offs to optimise the mission goals

■ Work through a full mission development process, including the use of ESA/NASA review stages

■ Provide a means to evaluate complex decisions to allow an informed decision to be made

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Work within a team to achieve a desired full life cycle space mission proposal

■ Apply industry standards and review practises throughout the design process using project management principles to support the design process and manage project risk

■ Analyse requirements and critically evaluate the suitability of tools to develop a mission

■ Critically Evaluate and compare suitable space systems to achieve the desired mission justifying the mission and satellite developed

■ Critically evaluate and manage any potential risks (including ethical and security) associated with the complex mission design developed

■ Summarise either the commercial offering/impact of the mission or the commercial potential/impact of the data from the mission