ECSS Evolution - Project phasing and reviews in future space projects

摘要

Space projects were analysed for their best practices, new industry methods and international approaches on how to manage project life-cycle, phasing and reviews. These results were compared with current ECSS (European Cooperation for Space Standardization) approaches to derive items for standardization in general and for improvement of ECSS in particular. ECSS is currently a conservative project framework in its policies, objectives and methods. It aims mainly at single mission space projects performed between space agencies and prime industry suppliers. Today's life-cycle approach in ECSS manages the individual development of a space system, sometimes adapted to recurrent development for a follow-on mission, but lacking modern methods to manage the life-cycle of constellation-programs, series-production or "off-the-shelf' procurement. It is hard to depart from the standards to apply flexible/agile methods or to use desynchronized supplier processes apart from the typical v-model. 36 recommendations for modern phasing/review approaches were identified. They start with correcting factual errors in ECSS and reach as far as to introduce new management, phasing and review concepts in a complete ECSS overhaul. Most of the recommendations are of this latter, "far-reaching" type. Further they do not only deal with technical content, but also with ways to improve ECSS documentation, publication and usability, especially how to draft requirements. To cover all recommendations 3 implementation strategies were developed to improve ECSS in the near term and in the far term, synching them with other on-going activities to improve ECSS. All this is "work in progress" within ECSS. This paper outlines the current status and the way forward how ECSS will handle project phasing and reviews in the future.