Managing Space Student Projects: Lessons Learned in the SSETI-ESEO Project

Paper number

IAC-07-E1.I.06

Author

Mr. Pedro Rodrigues, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal

Year

2007

Abstract

Space student projects are seen by all major space agencies and universities as having a very
important role in education, to prepare the students for the professional world, providing them
with the practical and "hands-on" experience lacking in their academic training. More and more
student projects are given academic credit, which shows the growing concern of the universities
in better preparing students for their professional lives, while space agencies support these
projects from the industry side, with their general and technical experience. SSETI has started
inside ESA Education Department and is now an independent student association with three
projects supported by ESA, joining students from universities all over Europe to design, build
and launch micro-satellites.

Managing student projects is, however, a brand new challenge, totally different from the
professional projects. One simple reason is that, instead of having qualified full-time
employees in these projects, they have to rely on unexperienced part-time students working in
their spare time and whose main goal is to finish their studies. The project will thus have a
variable evolution in time, always depending on the students availability, or it may even stop,
for example during exam periods or holidays. Another reason is that usually, after graduating,
students leave the project, delaying it as new people must join and catch up on the work done.
This fact also introduces knowledge transfer problems, as normally the experience and knowledge
gained in the project by previous students is not passed on properly. As if this was not
enough, there are also communication problems, specially when the project is scattered over
different countries and universities. All this may lead to several management problems and
surprises if the project is carried out without taking into account all the limitations and
uncertainties of the student behaviour.

This paper is presented using a very practical approach, identifying some of the major problems
associated with student projects and the main differences between them and the professional
projects. Based on the lessons learned and still being learnt in the SSETI-ESEO project, some
organizational and managerial structures will be presented to deal with these problems in a
better way and to take the most out of the available human resources. The major limitations of
this kind of projects and some hints on how to deal with them will also be introduced and
discussed.

Abstract document

IAC-07-E1.I.06.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-07-E1.I.06.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.