New ESA's European Cooperating States Show Interest in CDF
On the 22 January 2010, the Slovenian Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology and His Excellency Ambassador Leon Marc were part of the Slovenian delegation which visited the CDF during their visit to ESTEC to sign the European Cooperating State Agreement with ESA.
The CDF is very well suited to giving both technical and non-technical visitors a very good insight into the workings of ESA during the early stages of a project lifecycle and with its experience of more than 100 pre-phase A studies and more than 30 reviews of industrial studies, there is a wealth of experience to show the capabilities of this unique facility.
The CDF is also an excellent tool for the training of teams of engineers on mission design and space standards and practices, which is particularly attractive to new ESA partners and cooperating states.
New ESA European Cooperating States (ECS) such as Slovenia are shown the advantages of concurrent engineering as practiced in the CDF and given an insight into the models and software that enable Agencies, Industry and Academia to collaborate, operating in a unique design environment.
Following the CDF presentation, the Minister, Ambassador and the rest of the delegation visited the ESTEC Test Centre.