On Feb. 17-18, Goddard Space Flight Center hosted its second Model-Based Engineering (MBE) workshop, which included an overview of MBE’s new and emerging mission assurance counterpart, Model-Based Mission Assurance (MBMA).

In MBE, a virtual model of the system is created, typically while it is still in the design or planning phase. The model is used as a singular reference source for system concept, requirements and design, verification and validation, and associated data. In MBMA, Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) uses that model to perform a variety of assurance analyses earlier in the life cycle, instead of after the system has been designed and developed.

The Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) is encouraging the development of MBMA across the agency. There are potential benefits to Safety, Reliability Software Assurance and even Quality. As an example, fault trees can be rapidly synthesized from the models early in the development, saving time and effort on the part of safety and reliability engineers. Assurance products can be more effective in supporting the design activities such as fault management.

Goddard Aerospace Engineer Jessica Knizhnik coordinated the event, which was open to industry, universities and all of the NASA centers.

“A lot of people are doing things related to Model-Based Engineering across the agency and aerospace industry as a whole. Rather than reinvent the wheel, we wanted to bring the community together to share ideas and grow the discipline of MBE,” said Knizhnik.

This workshop was an ideal place to share an overview of MBMA with the rest of the MBE community. At the workshop, Goddard Reliability and Risk Assessment Branch Head Tony DiVenti shared an MBMA presentation that was co-authored by OSMA Reliability and Maintainability Program Manager John Evans.

“Many systems engineers weren’t aware of the MBMA concept or that SMA could have a role in Model-Based Engineering,” said DiVenti. “When we help assess reliability and risk it’s critical that we’re doing it concurrently with engineering and development. If we do it after the fact, it can become very costly or impractical to change things at that point.”

The workshop fostered collaboration between engineering and SMA within NASA, between NASA centers, and between NASA and industry. One of Goddard’s projects, Spacecube — a reconfigurable, hybrid data processing system designed for spaceflight — could also benefit from the collaboration.

“Internally at Goddard, the Components and Hardware Systems Branch of the Mission Engineering and Systems Analysis Division wanted to collaborate with us on Reliability modeling, such as looking at thermocycling fatigue for some items that were features used in Spacecube’s or cubesat designs. We also met with folks at Johnson Space Center. We’re talking about working with Johnson to understand what they’re doing and apply it to our MBMA at Goddard,” said DiVenti.

In addition, with OSMA sponsorship, Goddard is working to develop a partnership with the University of Maryland to apply MBMA and reliability modeling to Spacecube and cubesat missions.

Goddard is looking towards making the MBE workshop an annual event.

“We’re taking lessons learned from the workshop and beginning to look at implementing them,” said Knizhnik. “It’s taking us down paths other people haven’t gone down, and ones that they never even thought of. It will help determine what the workshop will look like in the future.”

Below are presentations from the workshop.