Hello Ryan, Samudra I really appreciate the time you took to respond. It is a bit perplexing to see that GMAT is actively developed and released, but there is no public discussion space about its use and features that is actually active. I am part of the Space Technologies, Applications and Services post graduate programme of the University of Athens and will be handling most of the practical aspects of the lab, once this pandemic madness is over (my masters is in electronics engineering, I've got experience in analog electronics, embedded systems, PCB design, prototype assembly, board hacking and repair etc). While our plan was to use a hardware satellite teaching platform we recently purchased, the situation excludes an in-person lab process, so we are gauging alternative activities that we can do to give the students perspective and a sense of accomplishment that just isn't there when you see a plain number in a console or an excel spreadsheet. The space sector is in its infancy here (Greece) - what we are after is to train the first generation of local space engineers, that can move on to be employed in relevant companies (hopefully within the national space scene), be in a position to work with their colleagues and have a fundamental understanding of what happens to get a spaceship flying, the tradeoffs involved and so on. There are two programmes, a pre-grad and a post-grad one, both of which will go through some version of this lab cycle. Each individual student will move on to do their respective specializations (our post-grad programme has computer scientists, electrical/mechanical engineers, physicists etc) and it is not our goal to present every subsystem in deep practical detail. Rather, we'd like to put the students through the process of putting together the specifications of their spacecraft at the "black box" level, verify their results and assumptions and have a tool that can be used to explore their ideas and curiosity. Examples include fooling around with the basics of manoeuvres and propulsion, using solvers and optimisers to verify hand calculations, demonstrate the fuel consumption differences between different manoeuvre plants, verify assumptions on eclipse times and energy availability/consumption, investigate more "exotic" orbital concepts and so on. This investigation on tools is very hurried because it needs to cover the huge gap left by not being able to do proper in-person labs the way we were planning to. Thus, our requirements come from a place of necessity rather than a specific strategy. While I'd prefer to keep this accessible to all students (remember that some of them have never written code and will have a very serious obstacle to overcome before even getting into the actual subject at hand), I am willing to go through the process of learning a deeper/harder/more complex tool, if that has more resources available. Sysml might be useful, I think I'll have a go at it later in the week. Again, thank you both for your responses. These are really crazy times and need us to adapt quickly and efficiently - your input has been incredibly useful so far.
Regards, Spiros On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 7:39 PM Samudra Haque [TTLLC] < seha...@tekterrain.com> wrote: > Spiros, the mail list doesn’t allow large attachments, so had to remove > the screenshot I put in. Google Search “DellSat-77 Satellite” for images. I > am working on developing early hardware to be put together as education > kits in comms, propulsion, command/data handling for space 3.0 community > students (engineers in training?) > > > > Samudra > > > > *From:* Samudra Haque [TTLLC] > *Sent:* Tuesday, November 10, 2020 12:17 PM > *To:* 'Spiros Makris' <spirosmakri...@gmail.com>; > gmat-users@lists.sourceforge.net > *Subject:* RE: [Gmat-users] Using GMAT as a teaching tool for mission and > system level design > > > > But Spiros, GMAT is a mission analysis tool (propagation, astrodynamics, > orbital mechanics, staging). Is it (in recent versions) an effective Space > Systems Engineering tool? I am using SysML module within Dassault Aviation > / No Magic – MagicDraw and it comes out of the gate with enough tools to do > systems engineering courses | documentation | modeling. See picture > attached of “DellSat-77 Satellite” which is described fully in “SysML > Distilled A Brief Guide” by Lenny Delligatti. Fascinating. > > > > But only issue, the ‘demo’ license is limited and you cannot generate any > code without a full license – if that is something your teams want to do > (read chapter 1). > > > > So – free – Eclipse Papyrus + SysML is on my immediate radar. > > > > Any other possibilities? Please discuss. > > > > Also, Spiros, undergraduate or graduate programs? US or non-US (ITAR > restricted) domains? All will influence your toolchain. Don’t get into a > toolchain and find out later you can’t expand on it. > > > > Regards > > > Samudra N3RDX > > Washington, DC > > > > > > > > *From:* Spiros Makris <spirosmakri...@gmail.com> > *Sent:* Tuesday, November 10, 2020 2:19 AM > *To:* gmat-users@lists.sourceforge.net > *Subject:* [Gmat-users] Using GMAT as a teaching tool for mission and > system level design > > > > Hello, list, > > I am in a quest to find a tool that we can use in our lab to teach mission > design and systems engineering since using our mini satellite platform is > out of the question due to the pandemic measures. > > From the few choices available, I understand GMAT is the only open-source > (free) one, and that it is kept updated and NASA certified so it seems like > an ideal candidate. I started going through the manual and the tutorials > and for the time being they are detailed enough to get someone started. > We're still not sure how to integrate the tool in our academic programme, > but we have a few ideas - mainly exercises that validate (or discredit) > mission analyses that students have conducted in their previous space > systems engineering classes > > How have you used GMAT in conjunction with your teaching? Do you perhaps > have any publicly available material for us to refer to, such as tutorials > (other than those included in the manual), script examples or exercises? > > Unfortunately, the website mentioned in the manual and videos don't work > anymore. Is there an online community, other than this list, like a forum, > a social media group or anything of the sort that is still alive and > active? To be honest, I'm not sure if this very list is active - hopefully, > it is! > > > > Regards, > > Spiros > > Disclaimer: The information contained in this communication may be > privileged, and is intended for the use of the above named addressee(s). If > you are not the intended recipient(s), do not use or rely upon it. Instead, > please inform the sender and then delete it. Thank you. > > > _______________________________________________ > GMAT-users mailing list > GMAT-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gmat-users >
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