Solenix

Solenix, as part of a Telespazio Vega Deutschland led consortium, has completed its involvement in the European Space Agency (ESA) study, which had the objective to develop the architecture and an initial version of a PaperLess Ground Segment Engineering (PLGSE) framework.

The PLGSE study has successfully delivered a first version of a ground segment engineering framework (GSEF) that supports model-based system engineering (MBSE). GSEF is based on a web-based environment for collaborative system engineering, which offers enhanced editing, exploration, filtering, and search capabilities, as well as traceability of engineering data such as requirements, interfaces, components, tests, and more. The web-based environment lowers the barriers for access, while providing a highly comprehensive security framework. Some of the key features of the environment are:

• A data model based on established MBSE frameworks.
• A diagramming tool with a focus on model-based system engineering.
• Version-controlled approach to manage the data, allowing users to work in parallel.
• Various tools to import existing datasets, generate documentation and perform consistency checks on the existing data elements.
• Various features supporting enhanced collaboration across users, including ad-hoc discussions, support to several types of review processes, voting systems and integration with other systems, for a seamless experience.

Our contribution to the project focused on the addition of the collaboration features that provide the users with tools to work across multi-disciplinary and distributed teams.

The study team was able to demonstrate the main concepts and premises thanks to the participation of an ESA mission in the validation of the PLGSE prototype. The European Space Agency is already planning new activities to take the resulting framework into operations.

Solenix is very happy to have contributed to the success of this activity and is looking forward to continue supporting ESA in the evolution of ground segment development tools.