Fowler, W. T. (2012, June), A Quarter-century of Teaching Spacecraft Mission Design  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--20857

\bibitem{asee_peer_20857}
  Fowler, W. T. (2012, June), \emph{A Quarter-century of Teaching Spacecraft Mission Design}
  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas.
  10.18260/1-2--20857

Wallace T. Fowler P.E..  "A Quarter-century of Teaching Spacecraft Mission Design".  2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2012.  https://peer.asee.org/20857 Internet.  10 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_20857}
  Wallace T. Fowler P.E..
  "A Quarter-century of Teaching Spacecraft Mission Design".
  \emph{2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2012.
  https://peer.asee.org/20857 Internet.  10 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_20857
author = "Wallace T. Fowler P.E."
title = "A Quarter-century of Teaching Spacecraft Mission Design"
booktitle = "2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2012"
month = "June"
address = "San Antonio, Texas"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/20857}
number = {10.18260/1-2--20857}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -               A Quarter-Century of Teaching Spacecraft-Mission Design        After more than twenty five years of teaching a capstone spacecraft-mission designcourse in an aerospace engineering curriculum, the instructor looks back on the evolution of thecourse and changes in student capabilities. The evolution in course structure, types of projects,project depth, and instructor understanding of the design process are discussed. The effect of thetremendous increase in information available to students through the Internet is discussed.        The author was a traditional faculty member who taught engineering analysis coursesuntil he spent a year (1981-82) as a visiting faculty member at the United States Air ForceAcademy (USAFA). During that year, he taught sections of a tightly structured design course.This course, then designated as Engineering 430, was designed by Col. John Wittry. Theexperience was career-changing. The course was tightly structured, designed for instructorsbeginning teaching at the Academy after various non-academic Air Force assignments. This wasan ideal academic environment in which to learn about teaching design.       After the year at the USAFA, the author returned to his home institution where heintroduced a spacecraft-mission design course in 1984. At first, this course was an alternativecapstone design course to the traditional aircraft design course. Later, it became a requiredcourse for students choosing a new space flight curriculum option. During this period, thecourse became part of the NASA-USRA Advanced Design Program (ADP) that ran from 1985-1995. Participation in the ADP prompted important improvements in the structure of the course.       During the early 1990’s the author also offered a graduate level spacecraft – missiondesign course. The graduate students produced a document that characterized spacecraftsubsystems for use by the undergraduate design students. This document was used by regularlyundergraduate teams until internet access became common, and the information was readilyavailable on the web.        In 2007, graduates of the capstone course who had gone on to JPL began to suggestdesign topics for student design teams. This has evolved into a system in which JPL providesdesign topics and mentors for student teams. The mentors work with the teams throughout thesemester and a subset of the JPL mentors come to campus to hear the final oral designpresentations at the end of the semester. Then, in 2008, the introduction to systems engineeringcourse (the subject of an ASEE paper in 2010) was made a prerequisite for the capstonespacecraft-mission design course. The effects of this prerequisite change will be discussed.       An appendix will present a list of designs done by student teams since 1984. Otherappendices will present the course timeline, the course syllabus, and the list of deliverablesrequired of the student teams.
AU  - Wallace T. Fowler P.E.
CY  - San Antonio, Texas
DA  - 2012/06/10
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - A Quarter-century of Teaching Spacecraft Mission Design
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/20857
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--20857
ER  -