Space Career & Educational Opportunities through the ASTRI Programme

The following paper describes the purpose and benefits of the Advanced Student Team Research in space Industry (ASTRI) programme, as well as an example and programmatic outcome of a pilot project under the programme implemented by OHB SE. The ASTRI programme is a collaboration between European universities and private aerospace companies, and seeks to provide a structured transition between students’ academic curriculum and their entry into the industry. There are three main ASTRI stakeholders, and their positive outcomes of participating in the programme are identified and listed. One of the main benefits is the establishment of a young and well-prepared talent pool of engineers. OHB System, an established industry actor based in Germany, and the OHB SE subsidiary Blue Horizon, based in Luxembourg, participated in the first round of the ASTRI programme by proposing a project to develop a viable commercial micro moon lander concept. For their ASTRI project, OHB implemented new approaches such as Concept Maturity Levels (CMLs) as a way to structure an 18-month long phase 0/A/B1 feasibility study. Each team member was given a role in the project. The roles typically included a technical aspect, where each member was responsible for designing a particular subsystem of the spacecraft, and a non-technical aspect, which could include topics such as business development, cost analysis, and project control.The technical output of OHB’s project include a developed lander concept seeking to accommodate a wide variety of customers and payload types by providing not only transportation to the lunar surface, but also necessary infrastructure needed by the payloads to successfully complete their missions. These infrastructure service concepts are geared towards eventually providing support for permanent human lunar settlement, a vision that will hopefully bring space exploration closer to the public and inspire the next generations.