System engineering and problem management in space operations

Abstract

The process of problem management in ESA Operations encompasses all the project life-cycles of an operational ground segment. The scope of the process during the development phase is basically addressing ground segment anomalies. During the operations phase the scope is extended to address also the spacecraft anomalies. The optimal coordination of these different but related processes is a key aspect of applying system engineering and the exploitations of them would ensure enough feedback and improvement suggestions for the benefits of the future missions. Several types of feedback for different stakeholders are expected by this process such as: outages on board, unavailability and loss of acquired payload data for the Scientific User; open ground anomalies at launch; open spacecraft anomalies at start of routine operations for the Spacecraft Design authority; spacecraft anomalies during ground tests; any spacecraft anomaly in flight for Spacecraft Manufacturer; status and distribution of ground anomalies all over the project for Operations Management; root cause analysis of closed ground anomalies, identification of preventive actions, preparation and communications of lessons learned for other projects for Quality Assurance. The process of problem management, based on ECCS and ITIL compliant policy, is implemented via a single tool supporting anomaly tracking and problem investigation (ARTS) for all space operated missions. A dedicated process (owned by PA representative in each mission/project) is the formal reference standard to be respected. The use of a tool that implements the process flow between different roles reduces the time to closure for anomaly processing as data is transferred electronically and improve communication among all stakeholders (no information flying around as attachment to emails). In addition, it allows a better interaction between problem management and configuration management, especially for approval and validation of new implemented release, before closure of a problem. © 2008 by ESA. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.