Aerospace Design en Systems Engineering Elements

This course addresses the design of aerospace systems in general and, more in particular, the preliminary design of airplanes, spacecraft, and rocket launch vehicles. The following topics are addressed:

Aerospace design:

- Design process (in general and with application to airplanes, spacecraft, and launch vehicles)

- Role of Systems Engineering in the design process

- Functional en operational analysis, requirements generation

- Design concept selection en description

Airplane design:

- Design requirements

- Analysis of aircraft configurations

- Fuselage design

- Preliminary weight estimation

- Preliminary sizing of wing area and engine power/thrust

- Wing and propulsion system design and integration

- Tail and landing gear design and integration

Spacecraft design:

- Spacecraft mission objectives and requirements,

- Preliminary sizing of the spacecraft subsystems:

• Structures and mechanisms,

• Thermal control,

• Electrical power generation,

• Propulsion,

• Attitude determination and control,

• Command and data handling, and

• Telecommunications

Launch vehicle design:

• Launch vehicle mission, main functions, main requirements

• Launch vehicle concepts

• Single- and multi-staged launch vehicles

• Preliminary sizing of rocket stages and launch vehicle subsystems

The material treated in this course will be applied in later thematic projects (BSc year 2) and the Design Synthesis Exercise (BSc year 3). Follow-up courses are scheduled in years 2 and 3 of the aerospace engineering bachelor curriculum.

Assessment for the course consists of the assessment of a) the airplane design part and b) the spacecraft design part:

Ad a) The assessment of the airplane design part is based on a take-home exam. This exam consists of 7 take-home assignments that are individually tailored to each student. The take-home exam is open book and needs to be submitted in a standardized format (template) that is provided by the instructor(s). The submission deadline for the exam is near the end of Q3. There is a resit for the take-home exam, for which the deadline is near the end of Q4.

Ad b) The assessment of the spacecraft design part is based on an exam at the end of the course. In addition, there is a resit exam for the spacecraft design part, provided in the fifth exam period.

Grading Rules:

The grading is based on the students' results of the two parts (a and b). At the end of the semester, the student has 2 partial grades, each on a scale from 1 to 10:

- Airplane design take-home exam, a

- Spacecraft design exam, b

Each partial grade a and b must be 4.0 or higher to pass this course.

The final grade is computed as follows (parts a and b contribute equally to the final grade):

Final grade =(a+b)/2

Note: Partial grades do not transfer to the subsequent academic years.