Crew Exploration Vehicle Design

This unique course gives participants a hands-on opportunity to apply key principles of space systems engineering. Participants are given a set of customer expectations in the form of broad mission objectives for a crew exploration vehicle with the task of applying systems engineering process to define top-level system requirements and design key elements of the system. The end result will be a system design review during which students present and defend their design decisions.

Course participants are given a set of mission objectives in the form of a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Announcement of Opportunity (AO) and divided into competing groups to conceptually design a viable crewed mission that meets the customer expectations at an acceptable lifecycle cost. The groups are guided through a structured space system engineering approach to define a mission concept and supporting space mission architecture, and complete a detailed analysis.