Collaboration between ESA-DLR on Concurrent Engineering
On the 6th June 2007 a team of software experts and space system engineers from DLR (Deutche Luft und Raumfahrt, the German space agency, www.dlr.de) visited the ESA CDF. The purpose of the visit was to gather information, know-how and requirements for creating their own design facility in the new DLR system engineering centre in Bremen and more in general to reinforce the cooperation between the two agencies in the area of concurrent engineering. This follows similar initiatives and liaisons with other partners / national agencies like the French CNES (Centre National dÉtudes Spatiales), Italian ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana) and the Canadian CSA (Canadian Space Agency). The areas of collaboration include exchange of experiences, engineering models, including standardisation of data models and future infrastructure developments. Experience has shown that more collaboration leads to a more effective data exchange and an improved design process for all partners during joint activities.
The DLR team comprised the final users of the design centre and was thus well placed to receive the information given and ask numerous pertinent questions. A number of CDF members gave presentations on the CDF methodology, software and hardware and shared their experiences and lessons learned from the first years of activities utilising the concurrent approach. A visit to the new CDF building gave DLR representatives a good understanding of what the needs are for a state of the art concurrent design facility. The interest from DLR proves that the ESA CDF is fulfilling its task to support the European space community, industry and academia to improve the efficiency of their engineering processes, getting one step closer to a pan European distributed collaborative environment.