The Australian National Concurrent Design Facility (ANCDF)

UNSW Canberra Space Australian National Concurrent Design Facility (ANCDF)

UNSW Canberra Space has the unique experience of having developed and operated 4 small satellite missions over the past 10 years.

A central capability is Australia’s first space mission concurrent engineering design facility. Utilising purpose-built engineering software, the ANCDF leverages the group’s space experience to provide an accelerated mission assessment by enabling each member of the team, together with the customer or end user, to contribute their part to the project in parallel, significantly speeding up the design process. This allows engineers and scientists to rapidly determine the technical and economic viability of proposed space missions, not just for our team but for the entire Australian space sector and international organisations. To date, over 26 mission studies have been conceptualised for numerous government and international organisations.

The ANCDF was developed based on firsthand experience in similar facilities in the European space industry. Designed to specifically support the Australian space sector, the ANCDF puts an emphasis on customer integration, with implementation cost and schedule forming an integral part of the technical design.

The world-class facility was jointly funded by UNSW Canberra and the ACT Government and supported through a partnership with the French Space Agency, CNES, whose concurrent engineering software suite forms the basis of our capability.

Facility manager

Mr Michael McKinnell

Mr Michael McKinnell has an engineering degree in Electronics from the University of Western Australia and has worked in the European Space Industry for over 23 years. Prior to that experience he had over 11 years military operations and systems engineering experience in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), achieving the rank of Squadron Leader.

He has a strong background in developing and supporting mission-critical space systems and has held various roles in a variety of European space missions ranging from meteorological programmes to Earth Observation and deep space astrophysics missions. He has worked across the full lifecycle of space mission development and operations (Phases A to E), and participated in many system level test, operations, project and design reviews. He has also gained experience working with a variety of international organisations including ESA, the Japanese Space Exploration Agency (JAXA), EUMETSAT, CNES, NASA, NOAA and joint Australian / US military space operations.

In September 2022 Mr McKinnell was appointed to the position of Manager of the Australian National Concurrent Design Facility at the University of New South Wales in Canberra. This advanced CDF capability provides essential national support for the development of Australia's emerging sovereign space industry.

Testimonials

"I think both the ANCDF and the Bureau learnt a great deal from this Pre-Phase A Mission Study. I hope the report will benefit future […] mission studies and look forward to it being published online very soon."

Helen Beggs, SAR study, Bureau of Meteorology

"Your team is very impressive. If you can continue to build their experience, you will have a great reputation, I am sure."

Fiona Smith, Microwave Sounder Mission study, Bureau of Meteorology

"I'm really impressed with the quality of the discussions at the ANCDF this week, you've assembled a great team!"

Agnes Lane, Satellite Earth Observations Planning and Coordination, Bureau of Meteorology

"A belated thank you for an energising week in the ANCDF. […] The week certainly highlighted the critical aspects of the mission and what some of the key challenges of the mission going forward will be."

Caroline Poulsen, Lightning Detector study, Bureau of Meteorology

“Throughout the week, I felt everything exceeded expectations. Everyone we interacted with was very competent, helpful and friendly.”

Anonymous survey respondent, Microwave Radiometer Study, University of Otago

“Very good hosting of us, very inviting and friendly. Great people with good insights and a very good learning experience. [...] The resulting report will be highly useful in getting funding for the next round.”

Harald Schwefel, Microwave Radiometer study, University of Otago

"It's very exciting to have this report out! It is a very valuable and informative document pivotal to moving ahead with this mission. Thanks to all the great work from your team on this ANCDF study."

Marta Yebra, OzFuel study, Australian National University

ANCDF in education

UNSW Canberra Space is making use of the ANCDF's unique features to enhance its teaching at multiple levels:

Master's students

Satellite engineering courses
Visualisation support for other courses
Systems engineering
Internships and final/honours theses

Undergraduate students

Mission design workshop (see video)
Final year projects
Internships

High school

Simplified mission design workshop
Internships

Research including the ANCDF

Concurrent engineering is well established in the space industry. However, there are still research areas to be explored. With the ANCDF, UNSW Canberra Space is looking to perform research in the following areas:

Concurrent Engineering

Advanced model-based programmatics
Introduction of ethics as additional expert domain

Capability modelling

Mission trade-space analysis and pareto-optimum identification
Risk impact analysis
Engineering education research

Social psychology

Which environment will best breed disruptive ideas?

Studies performed in the ANCDF

No.	Customer	Title	Comment
1	AYAA	Space mission design experience	UG student activity
2	Internal	Tutorial and M2 exercise	Team training
3	Space Squad	Space mission design experience	STEM outreach activity
4	YoWIE	Space mission design experience	STEM outreach activity
5	YoWIE	Space mission design experience	STEM outreach activity
6	Internal	Lamanon mission concept study
7	ANU InSpace	Optical Ground Station Network
8	Office of National Intelligence	NICSAT mission concept study
9	University of Auckland	Radar Nanosatellite mission feasibility study	Article
10	CSIRO, SmartSat CRC	AquaWatch Phase 0 - mission architecture	Article
11	Trillium Australia	Bushfire command and control system	Non-space topic
12	Geoscience Australia, Australian Space Agency, CSIRO	Satellite Cross-Calibration Radiometer (SCR) study	Technical Feasibility Assessment Pre-Phase A Study Report
13	Bureau of Meteorology	Meteorological Instruments	Report \| Article
14	CSIRO, SmartSat CRC	AquaWatch Phase 0 - mission architecture (part 2)	Report \| Article
15	ANU inSpace, SmartSat CRC	OzFuel Phase A Study Report: Space-based Australian Forest Fuel Flammability Monitoring	Report
16	Australian Space Agency	Reconfigurable Intelligent Hyperspectral Satellite - Moon to Mars (M2M) Initiative, Demonstrator Study
17	Robinson Research Institute	Superconducting Magnet Study
18	Nominal Systems	Simulation Software Tools Workshop
19	Geoscience Australia, CSIRO, Australian Space Agency	Multi-Mission Imager (MMI) Pre‑Phase A Study	Report link to be added when published Media release / article link to be added (if available) when published
20	Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Space Agency	Initial Pre-Phase A Study Activities for Australian-Developed Satellite Missions (finalised in studies 21-23 below)
21	Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Space Agency	Lightning Detector Pathfinder Mission Pre-Phase A Study	Report link to be added when published Media release / article link to be added (if available) when published
22	Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Space Agency	Hyperspectral Microwave Sounder Pathfinder Mission Pre-Phase A Study	Report link to be added when published Media release / article link to be added (if available) when published
23	Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Space Agency	Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Pathfinder Mission Pre-Phase A Study	Report link to be added when published Media release / article link to be added (if available) when published
24	CSIRO	AquaSat-1 Pathfinder Platform Evaluation Study	Report links to be added when published Media release / article link to be added (if available) when published
25	University of Auckland	Microwave Radiometer Mission Concept Study (Global Ozone Layer Monitoring)
26	Australian Space Agency	Sustainable Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Nanosatellite Mission Pre-Phase A Study
27	UNSW Canberra	Project IGNIS A-Team workshop with NASA, Edith Cowan University, Adelaide University, University of Technology Sydney, Arizona State University.