Spacecraft Engineering
Spacecraft engineering deals with the design, development, construction, testing, and operation of vehicles operating in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere or in outer space.
A spacecraft typically centers about a "payload". That is the equipment that services the primary mission-for example, a cloud-cover camera for a weather satellite, an infrared (IR) sensor/camera for a earth observation system, antenna's, transmitters and receivers for a telecommunications system, and a crew for manned missions. This payload is usually mounted on some "payload platform" (sometimes also referred to as "vehicle bus" or shortly "bus"), which provides support to the payload. Additionally, the spacecraft may include an adapter that provides the load carrying interface with the launcher, and a propulsion kick stage to inject the spacecraft into its mission orbit.
Spacecraft engineering addresses the integration of all components that constitute a spacecraft (Payload + spacecraft bus subsystems including power, communications, thermal control, life support, etc.) and its life cycle (design, temperature, pressure, radiation, velocity, life time...), leading to extraordinary challenges and solutions specific to the domain of spacecraft engineering.
Issues dealt with include:
- Spacecraft requirements
- What constitutes a spacecraft (the subsystems)
- Design and analysis (includes estimation of mass, size, cost, reliability, and availability, budgetting, configuration design, time schedule, test planning, risk)
- Design description
Current focus is on the design, analysis and test of small satellites (micro- and nanosatellites) and the development of facilities and infrastructure for interdisciplinary space-craft related research.
