Concurrent Systems Engineering of a Cubesat System
- Paper ID
20442
- author
- company
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE); Instituto de Aeronáutica e Espaço (IAE); Institute of Aeronautics and Space/ CTA; INPE
- country
Brazil
- year
2014
- abstract
The paper presents a method combining traditional systems engineering with the concepts of the concurrent systems engineering to develop a CubeSat system in a case study. The method consists of Mission Definition, Lifecycle Processes Analysis, Stakeholder Analysis, Stakeholder Requirements, Functional Analysis, Architecture Design and Detailed Design. The approach was exemplified by modeling requirements, functions and implementation elements, simultaneously, for the CubeSat product and for the organizations that implement the CubeSat life cycle processes. With the increase of complexity of systems, traditional systems engineering methods are failing to anticipate all requirements needed to secure a solution that satisfies the stakeholders' needs. The concurrent systems engineering is a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to derive, evolve and verify a system solution, composed of products and the organization implementing the products' life cycle processes, balanced throughout the system's life cycle to satisfy stakeholders' needs and get public acceptance. The products and the organization composing the system solution for the CubeSat system will be developed concurrently. Picosatellites class, by definition, are extremely small, lightweight satellites, the progenitor of the pico class is the CubeSat, an open source satellite architecture for space research that usually has a volume of exactly one liter and typically uses commercial off-the-shelf electronics components. Those miniaturized satellites have as core components: an antenna, a radio transmitter for up-linking commands and down-linking data, an onboard computer, an electric power system, and payloads. The CubeSat specification accomplishes several high-level goals. Simplification of the satellite's infrastructure makes it possible to design and produce a workable satellite at low cost.