Valispace Teaches Concurrent Engineering at the International Space University (ISU)
Similar to the workshop at Técnico Lisboa (IST) earlier in March in Lisbon, the Valispace challenge of building a lunar base was used to teach the importance of concurrent engineering to the students following the Master of Space Studies (MSS19) at the International Space University (ISU). The partnership between Valispace and ISU was established in the scope of the Summer Space Programme 2019 (SSP19) at ISU when students explore the topic of concurrent engineering.
Students following MSS19 also study this matter as part of their curriculum, hence this was a good opportunity to design a first concurrent design workshop. We like to support student projects as we can quickly support educational activities while receiving immediate feedback about our platform. As the Valispace software is an intuitive tool, the power of concurrent engineering can be taught easily, and with a guided exercise, the diverse group with a multidisciplinary background (non-engineers were also present) would be able to experience a new way of collaborating together.
The day started with a lecture on the topic of Space Systems and Concurrent Engineering given by our team member, Stefan Siarov. After receiving the necessary information, students were assembled in teams to work on the challenge of constructing a lunar base. It was a pleasure to see the energy in the room: the students adapted to the concurrent engineering methods easily. With the help of the detailed information and instructions that were provided by Valispace, the teams discussed the naming of parameters, were able to work concurrently to get each other’s updates in real-time, and the discussions on full system design of a lunar base could be heard. Aside from the system’s design of the lunar base, teams were coming up with a concept of operations, a full product tree of the lunar base, the purpose of the mission and aimed at presenting a full power and mass budget in the end.
Some of the things which students shared they liked were how easy it was to learn to work with Valispace and how it enhances collaboration due to its real-time updates as it is a browser-based tool in the cloud. Having all information from different disciplines available in a single place was another aspect which was highly appreciated.
Thanks to the efforts of the ISU staff, the feedback of the students and our own Valispace team, there will be another workshop for the students at the end of July. This time, Valispace will also be able to provide the students with more modules and new features to make the design of a lunar base even more efficient.
Read the story from a student’s perspective on the ISU website here. If you want to find out more about the collaboration between Valispace and International Space University, click here.
Interested in establishing a partnership with us?
Send us your proposal to contact-us@valispace.com