## 2 Background
### Educational Foundation  
Small satellites can easily integrate into a project-based learning (PBL) methodology. The PBL technique seeks to create student learning through immersion in a project. Students are tasked with overcoming foreseen and unforeseen challenges and learn during the process.  
[PERSON] [17] identifies the critical nature of creativity to engineers. This creativity can be developed via a variety of techniques including creating a conducive environment and implementingproblem-solving. [PERSON] identifies PBL as a technique that can help create engineering creativity through student-centered, self-directed collaborative exercises. An eight-step approach is proposed beginning with (1) \"problem setting\", incorporating (2) brainstorming, (3) systematization, (4) thematic selection, (5) formulation of learning tasks, (6) knowledge acquisition via self-studying, (7) knowledge integration, and concluding with (8) structuring the knowledge in terms of the problem-at-hand.  
[PERSON], _et al_. [18] present work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) related to incorporating CubeSat development in undergraduate aerospace engineering and planetary science curriculum. [PERSON], _et al_. [19] pioneered an approach entitled \"Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate\" (CDIO) at MIT, based upon feedback from numerous engineering education stakeholders (educators, industry, students, _etc_.). [PERSON], _et al_. [18] expand this by asserting that there is a significant need, in aerospace engineering, for shared understanding between scientists and engineers. In the ExoplanetSat initiative, students from the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences were involved in the design process, via enrolment in the three-semester CDIO course progression. [PERSON], _et al_. note that this required students to engage in a science versus engineering trade process throughout the mission, analogous to how a pristine-class mission of this type would be performed. While this expanded the scope of interdisciplinary collaboration slightly, it does not fully encompass all discipline-types that would be required to be involved in a mission of this type.  
[PERSON] and [PERSON] [20] present work at the ETSI de Telecomunicacion in Madrid, Spain related to an extracurricular NanoSat project. This twenty-one month project was student-conceived and implemented, under faculty supervision. An antenna array designed for the purpose of inter-spacecraft communication (for a CubeSat-size craft) was created and its performance characterized. As donations were received for most components required, the project was performed on a limited budget. [PERSON] and [PERSON] proffer that this experiment demonstrates the feasibility of implementing simulated industry-analog engineering projects with limited resources and \"promising results\" [20]. The work, while conceptually promising, deals only with a limited subsystem and relies on donations that may not be available to other institutions or projects.  
Student involved projects (whether attempting to achieve exclusively learning goals or a combination of substantive research and education) carry with significant risk of project failure or less-than-complete success [21]. This risk comes from conventional risk sources (e.g., delays beyond project manager control, supplier issues); many elements of conventional risk are also exacerbated by the project conditions typical of student projects (e.g., participant lack of knowledge and inexperience). Student-involved projects also incorporate their own particular risk factors driven by the academic environment (e.g., a prioritization of course work over project performance, students joining and leaving the project at semester breaks and other times). Risk and general management, thus, is crucially important.