The Project Management Paradigm of ICUBE-1: The Debut CUBESAT Endeavour at Institute Of Space Technology

This research contribution is drafted to present the application of project management principles for the development of picosatellite projects, especially the CUBESAT at the University premises. The technological leap in the areas of smart and nanomaterials and with the advent of high computational abilities, the satellite industry is moving towards pico and nano satellites for the Earth observation, communication and surveillance missions. On the other hand, academia is also focused on developing the human resource for the aerospace industry by experimenting on the CUBESAT projects while involving its faculty and students on the real projects. The pico and nano satellite project management requires the application of specific knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to achieve the defined mission requirements in the limited resources. The Authors have presented the detailed outline for the project management principles of picosatellite and presented the different phases namely the initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closure for the pico satellite project to get the optimized results in academic environment. Developing countries like Pakistan are also investing in this technological domain and preparing their students for the challenges of next cyber generation. Institute of Space Technology (IST), Islamabad, Pakistan, a Public Sector University is developing its debut CubeSat named as ICUBE-1 with its researchers, under-graduate and post-graduate students. This research contribution is the case study of the project management, planning and system engineering of ICUBE-1 project that is planned to be launched in 2013.