Concurrent AIV and Dynamic Model Strategy in Response to the New Normal of so called Death March Projects: The Engineering Venture as Experienced in the DLR MASCOT and Hayabusa-2 Project

Abstract

As today’s projects increase quickly in complexity and development times are shortened to save budgets, the term “Death March Project” has been recently used to describe projects which schedules are so compressed that current and well established processes cannot be followed in order to finalize the project in the given time. MASCOT, a small 11 kg Asteroid Landing Package on-board JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 space probe is currently being finalized at DLR. Its last stages during the Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) process show that by applying a unique mix of conventional and tailored Model Philosophies it is possible to dynamical adapt the test program, limited by a fixed launch date, to accomplish for the shortest planning and a suitable weighing of costs and risks. Introducing “Concurrent AIV” to identify and mitigate design and manufacturing issues shortened the MASCOT project timeline further from a general 4 year AIV phase to less than 2 years.