The Successful Project Team: Systems Engineering (Orlando Figueroa)
Systems engineering plays a critical role in space-mission development and is the right hand of the PI and the PM. He or she provides the technical expertise for the design, integration, and verification of the platform and supporting systems to meet the mission’s objectives in an affordable manner, and within an acceptable level of risk. The role of the systems engineer in complex technical development is not to act as a clerk to manage a requirements database, or merely an analyst to calculate mass and power margins, but is the technical “visionary” that leads vertical and horizontal design and integration of the mission—especially across the major interfaces of science instruments, launch, and mission operations. The roles and responsibilities of the systems engineer within the PI-led team, and the leadership qualities, experience, and “system view” that past successful PI missions have practiced, will be discussed in the context of the challenges of today’s environment.
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