Developing Effective Space Systems with Earlier Integration, Verification, and Validation

Abstract

Space systems are complex systems developed to address a defined problem or opportunity, with current trends seeking faster developments within competitively priced budgets. Methods are needed to provide early confidence in the ability of an organization to successfully develop a space system that meets stakeholders' expectations.

Addressing integration, verification, and validation earlier and continuously across the lifecycle is crucial towards assuring the space system is developed in a way that is feasible, conforms to requirements, meets the needs of the stakeholders, and ultimately can achieve the goals and objectives of the mission within budget, schedule and acceptable risk.

This paper suggests solutions to this development using the activities promoted by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) through the INCOSE Needs and Requirements Manual (NRM) (INCOSE, 2022) by applying the concepts to an example space system. This example covers the activities of lifecycle concept and needs definition, requirements definition, and early system verification and validation during architectural and design definition using the FireSat II example from the Space Mission Engineering: The New SMAD (Wertz, et al, 2011), showing a familiar space mission example in a new light.

The outcome is a demonstration of space system development using a data‐centric approach, resulting in a comprehensive and well‐formed integrated set of needs and requirements with the ability to address integration, verification, and validation across the development lifecycle, supporting faster and more cost‐effective development of high quality, safe, and efficient space mission solutions.