Formalization of CubeSat Data and Mission Parameters Through SysML for Preliminary Design

During the past two decades, the Space Industry has witnessed a constant evolution, primarily represented by a con tinuous increase in the number of operational satellites and market value with for instance CubeSats. This period has been marked as well by a pivotal shift from traditional Document-Based System Engineering to Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and Concurrent Engineering (CE) approaches, a transition led by both Industry and Academia. This shift responds to the increasing demand for innovative space technologies, and the necessity to accelerate design processes and lower costs. The modeling of complex systems is a complex endeavor. Particularly, as design team projects seem to always start from zero during the Preliminary Design (PD) Phase (Phases 0/A according to ESA’s nomenclature). System models ideally should be integrated with different external simulation tools. To this date, many issues arise when trying to tackle this integration in the order of syntax and semantics. How to effectively formalize and exchange data during the PD phase?- This is one of the open questions that this paper addresses. This paper presents the first efforts of the development of an open-source initiative for the modeling of CubeSats starting from the PD studies. It discusses the formalization of a CubeSat Systems Modelling Language (SysML) general model, enhanced through the use of a newly-generated set of Unified Modelling Language (UML) stereotypes. The prin cipal design choices- namely, the use of SysML as modeling language and UML stereotypes for efficient data storage and simulation- and their rationale are presented. The application of UML stereotypes within a SysML model tai lored ad-hoc for CubeSat PD is shown to offer several advantages, including enhanced data characterization, reusability, and system optimization. The formalization offers a centralized, adaptable data source that integrates seamlessly with simulation tools, improving design accuracy and efficiency. By expanding the scope of stereotypes and enhancing tool compatibility, future work could unlock new possibilities in multi-disciplinary optimization, real-time mission planning, and collaborative design. Moreover, an overview of the main advantages and drawbacks of the proposed formalization is provided, as well as an indication for future works.