Applying Model-Based System Engineering to the Verification of Space Systems

The life cycle of a complex system is a process involving a large amount of elements to be defined, designed, verified, produced and interfaced, and completed through the interaction of several people with different background, experience and field of interest. Model-based system engineering is an emerging approach that aims to help the improvement of such processes, making all the data relevant to the product stored in semantically structured models that describe it in all its characteristics and point of views. The future development of system engineering may be envisaged as gradually abandoning the document-based in favor of the model-based approach. While the application of model-based methodologies to the design of complex systems is on its way, through a relevant number of initiatives, lesser effort has been spent up to now concerning the verification of the system specification. The aim of this work is therefore to define a methodology to apply the principles of model-based system engineering to the verification process, to demonstrate feasibility and advantages and to identify the need of improvement in this sense coming from the past experience. The space industry is an ideal domain for such activity, as it covers some of the most complex built systems, both in terms of design and industrial perspectives; therefore the work here presented is focused on the European space standards and principles, but it is worth noting that the approach is easily generalized to other industrial domains.