Building the space workforce through experiential learning: A university curriculum for space systems education

Abstract

The space economy's growth is constrained by a shortage of professionals with hands-on experience in the design, build, and operation of space systems. This report presents the Space Engineering Technology (SET) curriculum, a four-semester university course sequence that develops space-workforce capability through experiential learning: student cohorts design, build, test, launch, and operate real spacecraft and science payloads. The curriculum's distinctive dual-track architecture divides each student generation into a payload cohort and a spacecraft cohort that follow parallel, systems-engineering-driven course sequences and are coupled by a formal handover, in which the payload cohort delivers a tested, calibrated instrument to the spacecraft cohort for integration and flight. Model-based systems engineering, implemented in an open-source digital engineering platform, runs as a continuous thread through all four semesters, carrying each design from mission requirements through formal design reviews to build authorization, verification, and mission operations. The curriculum distills more than a decade of curriculum development and six years of delivery experience from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's Earth and Planetary Exploration Technology program and is designed for adoption by universities with or without established engineering programs. The report documents the complete module-level schedules for both cohort tracks across all four courses, the associated review-gate structure, and the considerations governing implementation. This report will provide the design baseline for subsequent evaluation studies of the program.