Course Catalogue

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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

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

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. Where, exceptionally, reassessment on Honours courses is required to satisfy professional/accreditation requirements, only the overall course grade achieved at the first attempt will contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

It is not possible to offer reassessment in group project work in this course. Students failing to complete the group project work, without good cause, will receive a Credit Refused (CR) grade and will be required to re-attend the course the following year.

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

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.

Students should attend at least 75% of the timetabled classes of the course.