HANDS ON EDUCATION THROUGH STUDENT-INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIPS

摘要

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company has invested in the future generation of engineers by partially funding and mentoring CubeSat projects around the country. One CubeSat in particular, ALL-STAR (Agile Low-cost Laboratory for Space Technology Acceleration and Research), has shown how this industry/university partnership benefits both the students and their mentors. Students gain valuable insight into aspects of spacecraft design that are not taught in classes. They also start learning about industry processes for designing,building, and testing satellites before ever working in that environment. Because of this experience, industry is getting more qualified engineers starting fresh out of college. In addition Lockheed Martin's partnership with the university will allow them to use the students to help build affordable CubeSats for internal and customer's research and development projects. The mentoring also challenges the engineers to think differently about similar problems they face every day with their larger programs in order to make the solution simple and affordable.