Software Implementation of Systems Engineering in Space Applications

Abstract:

Spacecraft Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary field in which a basic knowledge of each spacecraft subsystem and its interfaces are required. Although it is one of the key subjects for space projects, there are not enough tools available for educational purposes. Therefore this study was aimed at the development of an economical and educational systems engineering tool called Systems Engineering Module (SEM) for the Space Trajectory Analysis (STA) software. During this study, the existing applications were investigated in order to determine the requirements of such tools. Mockups of subsystems were implemented and the interface was configured between SEM and STA. In addition, SEM was also designed to offer a user-friendly GUI where the user could investigate the details of the spacecraft systems design. The developed software has been verified with an example presented in Larson & Wertz [SMAD0]. As a result, an open source systems engineering tool which can run in Mac OS, Windows and Linux was implemented for free usage and distribution under the terms of the European Union Public License.