University Team Designing a CubeSat

The Problem

A university capstone team was designing a 3U CubeSat for an atmospheric science mission. The students had textbook knowledge of SMAD methodology but no practical tools. They were using Word documents for requirements, hand calculations for budgets, and had no formal phase gate tracking. The faculty advisor wanted the students to produce professional-quality deliverables.

How SMAD Portal Helped

The team signed up for SMAD Portal and started with the demo mission to learn the platform. Within the first session, they created their mission, imported initial requirements, and set up subsystem budgets. The built-in calculators handled orbit selection, power sizing, and link budget analysis using the same equations from their SMAD textbook. Phase gate tracking gave the faculty advisor visibility into progress.

Outcomes

• Students producing professional SRR deliverables within three weeks
• Requirements traceability established for the first time in program history
• Faculty advisor had real-time visibility into design progress
• Graduating students included deliverables in their professional portfolios