My interest in space started as a kid; as a "nerd," I loved the "Star Trek" series and imagined myself in space. I even participated in Comic-Con events by cosplaying my favorite characters. So, it was no surprise that before joining the Aras team, I worked for over 21 years in the aerospace industry in Brazil. Recently, I hosted a webinar on PLM in the space industry. My prior experience focused on Simulation Process and Data Management (SPDM), where I became proficient in understanding current industry standards. When I moved to São José dos Campos, where INPE is located, it was very close to where I worked. I decided to continue my studies there, receiving a master's in engineering and management from the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE).
After working on building a data management environment that would comply with ECSS standards, I joined Aras. Once exposed to the functionality and benefits of Aras Innovator®, I realized it would be the perfect platform for my vision of a data management environment for the space industry.
Current Industry Standards
European Cooperation for Space Standardization, or ECSS, is in the Netherlands. The organization is committed to developing standards for all European space agencies and is a collaboration between numerous space agencies, companies, and industries. The ECSS system comprises 139 Standards, 57 Handbooks, and 9 Technical Memoranda and has verifiable requirements across management, Engineering, Product Assurance, and Space Sustainability functions.
One of the primary ECSS standards is the System Engineering General Requirements. This standard specifies the requirements for system engineering implementation for space systems and the development of space products.
One of the main goals of this standard is to establish a firm technical basis to minimize technical risks and the cost of the development of space systems and products. To achieve this goal, we must ensure the availability of all data involved in the space product lifecycle, such as development, production, testing, and operation data.
Additional goals include:
- Enabling the capture of all engineering data produced during the complete space system lifecycle.
- Allowing a reliable and efficient data exchange between suppliers and customers and between all engineering disciplines at all levels of system decomposition and all lifecycle phases.
- Configuring different data views according to the needs of each stakeholder.
Let's take a moment to talk about Concurrent Design Facilities. The Concurrent Design Facility is a concept developed by ESA to facilitate concurrent engineering sessions in the initial phases of space systems development. Each Concurrent Design Facility is made up of a multi-disciplinary team of engineers that are physically in the same room to facilitate their interaction.
However, being together in the same room isn't enough to improve collaboration. For the work to flow more quickly, it is essential to have a common data model and a data management tool compatible with this model. These are key elements in the creation of your digital thread, which provides the connectivity and traceability that are required for success.
Enter, Aras Innovator
After joining Aras and being exposed to Aras Innovator, it became apparent that it would be the perfect system to use in the space industry because all the recommendations on data management and system architecture mentioned by ECSS correspond to the general strategy and functionalities of the solution.
In assessing how Aras Innovator could provide data traceability improvements in the space product lifecycle, I started with a few assumptions:
- Any process within the space system lifecycle uses and produces data.
- Many different software applications support these processes.
- All these applications include a data repository, which provides persistent data storage and other components such as:
- Data import and export interfaces;
- Report generation;
- Configuration and version control… and so on.
With these assumptions in mind, we began envisioning a PLM solution for the space industry. To learn more about the details of implementing such a solution in Aras Innovator, I recommend you take a few minutes to watch the on-demand recording of our webinar, Shooting for the Stars, A PLM Tale in Space. But first, let's look at Aras Innovator and how it can boost this process through efficiencies, shared data, and full traceability of a product lifecycle from ideation through the end of use.
A PLM Solution for the Space Industry
The main goals are to capture and manage all engineering data produced during the complete space system lifecycle, to allow a reliable and efficient data exchange between suppliers and customers, and between ALL engineering disciplines at all levels of system decomposition and all life cycle phases.
While designing the final space system solution, multiple design teams work concurrently to design each of the many subsystems, ensuring that the impact of the design decisions across multiple teams is correctly assessed.
This includes defining the requirements, system functions, architecture, simulations, detailed system design, and verification and validation activities. Each of these is accomplished using different tools, each of which may have specific databases to store the data, for example:
- The team defining the requirements uses a requirements management tool and produces lots of requirement documents
- The system engineers use MBSE tools to produce SysML diagrams representing the functions and systems architecture
- The simulation engineers create simulation models to check the system behavior and manage all simulation data using an SPDM tool
- The teams working on the detailed design will use different tools, such as MCAD and ECAD to design systems
- Finally, at the end, everything needs to be checked against the original requirements, creating numerous reports.
According to the ECSS, the space system data repository is a federation of different databases that are logically integrated, and this is made possible by having a local conceptual data model for each application, all of them being semantically compliant and part of a global conceptual data model, specific for each project.
With Aras Innovator, that's exactly what we are able to do. We can create our own data models.
Starting with Requirements, we can create a local data model that includes an object called Requirements Document, a collection of individual Requirements.
These requirements could be authored using Aras Innovator. Still, if we choose to author them in a dedicated requirements management tool, we can also configure a connector between Aras and this tool so that we are able to access the same data using Aras Innovator. The same logic applies to other data models and authoring tools along the system development process.
Once all the data are captured, the Digital Thread provides the right user with the right data at the right time. The Digital Thread creates a cohesive digital ecosystem for managing data relationships that connect different systems and workflows. This establishes context and traceability for both structured and unstructured data, making it easier to navigate and manage.
Interested in learning more…To learn more about Aras Innovator and how it can be used to provide the digital thread backbone for the space industry, we invite you to watch the on-demand webinar recording and encourage you to share your takeaways, comments, and questions with us in the comment field.