DLR-DAAD Doctoral Fellowship Nr. 678: Development of an Early-Phase Life-Cycle-Sustainability Assessment Method for Space Mission Design

Enter the fascinating world of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and help shape the future through research and innovation! We offer an exciting and inspiring working environment driven by the expertise and curiosity of our 11,000 employees from 100 nations and our unique infrastructure. Together, we develop sustainable technologies and thus contribute to finding solutions to global challenges. Would you like to join us in addressing this major future challenge? Then this is your place!

Our Institute of Space System in Bremen offers a

Nr. 678: Development of an Early-Phase Life-Cycle-Sustainability Assessment Method for Space Mission Design

What to expect:

The German Aerospace Center is researching in the field of Life-Cycle-Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) to identify hotspots of sustainability impacts caused by space missions. The vast majority of impacts is set during the initial design of space missions,even though they will only come into effect in later phases. For early mission design DLR is using the Concurrent Engineering process, a multidisciplinary and collaborative design approach in its Concurrent Engineering Facility. The nature of the process requires adaptation of sustainability evaluation methods, such as LCSA, as e.g. less time for analysis is available and less data confidence. Nonetheless, it is important to derive meaningful and informative data for creating trade-offs between designs and allow a priori evaluation of mission impacts in all three sustainability dimensions (social, economical and environmental).

Your Task:
Within the research of the project, your task will be to develop a process suitable for application within DLRs early mission phases. This involves finding suitable indicators (midpoint or endpoint) as well as data sources. Furthermore, process adaptation within the CE environment need to be considered, e.g. creating budgets during the study, setting up domains with key parameters, or adaptation of the spacecraft model. The goal is to adapt the CE and LCSA-processes to allow an evaluation of sustainability impacts during early mission design, which allows for trade-offs and creating sustainable space missions.

After an initial literature research, which creates a basis for your research and familiarizes you with the current state of the art within and outside the project, you will
adapt the LCSA to our CE process iteratively, i.e. while also taking part in studies and applying your methods. You will publish your results in relevant peer-reviewed journals and present at relevant conferences.

What we expect from you:

What we offer:

DLR stands for diversity, appreciation and equality for all people. We promote independent work and the individual development of our employees both personally and professionally. To this end, we offer numerous training and development opportunities. Equal opportunities are of particular importance to us, which is why we want to increase the proportion of women in science and management in particular. Applicants with severe disabilities will be given preference if they are qualified.

Further information:

Starting date: 01.02.2025

Type of employment: Full-time

Dr. Volker Maiwald

volker.maiwald@dlr.de