Abstract:
This work investigates two approaches, which are strongly interrelated, to reach an overall cost reduction goal in modern spacecraft (S/C): reduction of S/C component costs through use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and more efficient S/C development processes through standardization of describing S/C architectures. The investigation of those two approaches leads to two questions that shall be answered in this work: “Does the use of COTS components in S/C architectures bring overall benefits for the project?” and “What is the architecture of a S/C and how can its description be standardized?”
First this work treats the standardized description of S/C architectures by defining a S/C architecture framework. Then it describes a generic evaluation process for assessing COTS components. Finally it shows some means to evaluate the performance of S/C architectures with and without COTS components.