Concurrent Engineering to Enhance Autonomy for Deep-Space CubeSat Mission Design

Concurrent Design is a modern and innovative approach for space mission and system design, aligning with the "low cost and fast delivery” paradigm. The paper presents how, in an educational environment, the concurrent engineering approach has been applied in designing a CubeSat mission to emulate an interplanetary mission in Low Earth Orbit, with an earth observation secondary objective. This mission focuses on automating mission operations, system autonomy, and innovative control systems. The paper details the mission and system design, and the effectiveness of the concurrent design approach and proposed future improvements are assessed.