Image: Enno Kapitza for DLR

The SPM group concentrates the competences in the fields of systems engineering and project management of the department of navigation and supports the other groups of the department in the mentioned fields. In particular, extensive and multilateral projects with miscellaneous partners (different DLR institutes and departments, industrial companies, other research institutions, funding agencies, etc.) are challenging. Here, the scientific staff often cannot handle sufficiently systems engineering and project management tasks of the project, especially for space missions funded by e.g. the European Space Agency. Successful space missions typically require management and systems engineering tasks as well as accurate documentation to a great extent. These duties and responsibilities are assumed by the SPM group to ensure a proper accomplishment within a professional framework and the necessary experience. Thereby, the scientific staff can focus completely on their technical tasks which in turn results in high quality results.

The tasks of the SPM group are the following:

• Project management:
  • Execute project management tasks for internal and multilateral projects
    • Responsibility for the promised performance towards the funding agency
    • Technical project management
    • Resource management
    • Risk management
    • Organization and chairing of project meetings
    • Interface with project partners
    • Contract negotiations
    • Organization and negotiation of non-disclosure agreements
    • High level technical leadership for the internal project staff
  • Project acquisition
  • strategic analysis of the scientific, political and industrial environment
  • Consulting the department and institute leaders regarding the prioritization of upcoming projects / work or strategic decisions
     
• Systems Engineering:
  • System design processes
    • Stakeholder expectations analysis
    • Technical requirement‘s definition
    • System optimization
    • System documentation
  • Product realization processes
    • System implementation
    • System integration
    • System verification
    • System validation
  • Technical management processes
    • Technical planning and assessment
    • Requirement management
    • Interface management
    • Configuration management
    • Decision analysis

Currently supported ongoing projects:

• OTTEx-Pre (Optical Time Transfer Experiment – Preliminary study)
• IVORY (In-Orbit Verification of stabilised Optical and MW Reference sYstems)
• COFROS (Compact Optical Frequency References on a Satellite)