Risk mitigation strategies for reliability improvement of university built satellite programs

University-built satellite programs are prone to failure because these projects are performed by inexperienced student-engineers during the early parts of the satellite-building “learning curve”. However, with sufficient attention on risk management, students should be able to identify what risk avoidance actions should be taken, and when. By applying risk mitigation strategies, university built satellite programs will not only contribute students to learn space systems engineering, but also accomplish their scientific missions with higher rates of success. This thesis study is aimed to provide risk management guidelines that could be adapted to university built satellite programs to increase the risk awareness. Besides indicating the key strategies for risk mitigation, a set of risk management procedures are prepared to help students during the university-built satellite projects.