Automating Services for Spacecraft Conceptual Design Via an Enterprise Service Bus

Abstract

As space system designs are growing more complex and market demands bigger, technical issues related to concept development become more important and difficult. Moreover, due to pressure on cost and time, many space projects nowadays demand distribution as they undergo their development divided among several project partners, sometimes temporally and geographically separated hampering the information exchange and causing adding risks to its conception. This key phase maps client needs to product use functions and is where functional architecture (and sometimes the physical architecture) is decided upon. Typically, the design specifications and constraints impose a heavy burden on systems-of-systems engineering. This paper shows how some processes of the space mission conceptual phase can be standardized and automated using a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm. By employing an enterprise bus service (ESB), named SpaceESB, applications become distributed and its reuse promoted.