Conference Session

Spacecraft Design Education

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sanjay Jayaram, Saint Louis University; Michael A. Swartwout, Saint Louis University

Tagged Divisions

Aerospace

, project management, experimental, ethical, andprofessional issues faced by practicing engineers on a daily basis. Even though space missionsand spacecraft systems are designed to operate in the presence of multiple failures, occasionally,these systems will still fail spectacularly. The reasons for failure include incorrect designdecisions, operator error, manufacturing defects, and lack of proper subsystem and system levelintegration and test. The odds of these failures occurring can be significantly reduced throughgood systems engineering practice. But, in some cases, the very systems engineering practicesthemselves directly contribute to the failure. The lessons learned from success and failures are apowerful aid to understanding, but it is

Conference Session

Aerospace Technical Session

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Wallace T. Fowler P.E., University of Texas, Austin

Tagged Divisions

Aerospace

real world team design tasks and will perform design team managementfunctions. Ethics in engineering and management will be covered and the importance of safetyconsiderations, and reliability. Students will learn to develop a detailed design needs statementfrom a vague initial design goal. They will learn to carry out engineering trade studies and to workin an arena in which critical pieces of information are often missing. They will learn to makeassumptions, to work on the basis of those assumptions, and subsequently to modify or abandontheir assumptions as appropriate. They will learn that design is iterative and will develop judgmentthat will allow them to compare and evaluate design alternatives. They will learn to present theirresults in

Conference Session

Aerospace Technical Session

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Adeel Khalid, Southern Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Aerospace

to otherdisciplines like law, arts, music, management, teacher education, or any other fields that havemade extensive use of cases for professional training.Teaching with cases often involves several challenges for the instructor. These includediagnosing technical problems and formulating solution strategies, making engineering andmanagement decisions taking into account technical, economic, and social and psychologicalconsiderations, and confronting ethical dilemmas [6]. The instructor needs to either have lots ofexperience or they can invite aerospace engineers from the industry to give seminars and presentcases. The instructor can then have students analyze the cases. The cases need to be authentic,and may also be drawn from stories in