AC 2011-1009: SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND SPACECRAFT SUBSYSTEMS MODELING AS PREREQUISITES FOR CAPSTONE DESIGN

A NASA project to improve university design education curricula has resulted in the addition of an undergraduate introduction to systems engineering and a spacecraft subsystems modeling laboratory as prerequisites to the capstone spacecraft/mission design course in aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. The systems engineering course materials, created by the second author, are based on NASA systems engineering practices and available in the public domain on the internet (http://spacese.spacegrant.org). The current paper summarizes the content of the systems engineering course, as well as a companion lab on modeling spacecraft subsystems, and focuses on the positive effects of introducing systems engineering prior to the capstone design course. The student designs since the introduction of the systems engineering prerequisite have been more complete, better conceived, better documented, and much more professional than before. The student design team leadership has functioned more effectively and student oral presentations have been markedly improved. The effects of the systems engineering introduction are most apparent in the final written design reports. Summary information from an example student report is included here and the full report is available.