Developing Young Space System Engineers

At a fundamental level, system engineering is the process by which engineering efforts are communicated, controlled, and organized on complex projects. The engineers who perform this work well are able to work across multiple engineering and managerial disciplines. They require outstanding technical, personal, management, and communications skills and an ability, based on experience, to work in areas where clean decisions are not possible. Furthermore, within the Space Department (SD) at the Johns Hopkins University - Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), lead system engineers are delegated responsibility for leading the development of the technical baselines and ensuring their performance robustly meets requirements. Success in these areas requires a level of capability and maturity that can only be developed through time and experience. With such a high bar being set, the question: “How does one develop high-caliber system engineers?” becomes difficult to answer. Within the JHU/APL SD, prior to 2006, the primary means of attaining system engineers were through hiring experienced staff from external organizations or moving interested and capable staff from other areas of the department. This situation creates two problems within a growing organization. First, potential staff with the credentials stated above is extremely difficult to find, making it difficult for a system engineering organization to grow in the face of attrition. Second, the demographics of a system engineering organization become skewed toward older staff, limiting the organization's access to new methodologies, alternative means of collaboration, linkages to the university system and (frankly) youthful energy, to name a few. To address this need, management within the department developed a program for developing newly minted Masters Graduates. Key to this program is the recognition that system engineering is a process for communicating and organizing the work associated with the development and production of a specific product which is not an end to itself. As such, providing experience in both system engineering and the product-focused disciplines necessary for developing, integrating or operating space systems is critical. This describes the impetus for developing the Young Space Systems Engineers Program, key program features, problems encountered during development, and the program's successes. A strong case is made for the necessity for system engineers to understand the system engineering process and the product they produce, as well as the human element that goes into making it.