A Tailored Systems Engineering Process for Developing Student-Built CubeSat Class Satellites

Abstract

CubeSats have become an important component of space systems engineering education and research activities across the globe. A variety of universities and government stakeholders have developed educational materials and coursework to train students to follow systems engineering processes in developing these systems, but these materials generally recommend that students follow traditional, industry-derived systems engineering processes without acknowledging the technical and managerial limitations of the workforce in an undergraduate learning environment. This research seeks to develop a more modern model-based systems engineering approach that is tailored to the capabilities, time constraints, and resources typical of undergraduate space systems design and development courses. The considerations for and procedures followed to develop these systems engineering processes are presented here, and the results of implementation of these processes in successive cohorts of undergraduate students performing CubeSat design and development are presented. The results show a significant improvement in instructor and subject matter expert-assessed student learning and student performance. The causes of these results are elucidated with evidence of improved understanding of the systems engineering process, and improved cohort-to-cohort information flow. The Systems Engineering Handbook that is the subject and object of this study is available for other educators and students at https://hdl.handle.net/10217/237534.

Keywords

• CubeSats
• engineering education
• model-based systems engineering (MBSE)
• systems engineering (SE)