Devising of Beihang University's satellite communications laboratory as an educational hub in an interdisciplinary and internationally teaching environment

Beihang University has more than 1500 international students and 27000 domestic students, and is one of the best universities in space technology and application fields in China. It offers the degrees in both English and Chinese. This paper deals with the Satellite Communications Laboratory (SCL, which is devised as a part of the International Space Education Center located in Beihang University. International and domestic students in Master'ss and PhD programs conduct experiments and research in an intercultural environment. Having targeted both satellite communications and spacecraft engineering fields, a joint team of electronics and astronautics faculties has been involved in the design. The designed architecture of this laboratory, explained in the first section of this paper, has a top-down systematic approach based on the spiral model. Minimizing the implementation cost, the design team has considered use of COTS solutions, an available on-campus facility - such as a ground station, off-campus trip, and international cooperation. Then, the paper illustrates the three learning groups in SCL including ground station technology and operation group, onboard communication payload and subsystem development, and end-to-end verification. For instance, the ground station group has receiving stations in Ku- and S-bands and a full-duplex station in UHF and VHF bands to communicate with satellites in orbit. Furthermore, the teaching methods will be explained. They are based on problem solving method and are adaptive to teaching period, participant's major and research background. Students work individually or as part of a team, which their work should be result in a product or service. Some of these products would be employed to enhance and to update the SCL's own-facilities according to the spiral model. In conclusion, the paper addresses how the students have been taught in SCL and their contributions following lessons learned from different stakeholders including coordinators, teachers, and students.