Inside-Out Systems Architecting: An Approach to Architecting the NASA Orbital Space Plane

摘要

NASA has published the Level One requirements for the Orbital Space Planerndevelopment. Those requirements leave open opportunities for creative development of arnspacecraft that not only will provide the world with efficient travel to and from low-earth orbit,rnbut also for crew rescue capability from the International Space Station. The success of thernOrbital Space Plane development phase will depend strongly on the ability of competingrncontractors to establish criteria for gathering the needs of the stakeholders and develop modelsrnwhich are technically achievable, have acceptable risks, have acceptable costs, while adequatelyrnmeeting the NASA needs.rnThis paper proposes a hypothesis for architecting the NASA Orbital Space Plane. Beginning withrnthe level one system requirements, this approach defines a “system of systems” approach thatrnmoves from the “inside-out” in an iterative fashion. This process allows the system architect tornunderstand the out-lying systems and when/where the architecting process should stop. Systemsrnare inherently boundless and knowing also where are the client’s core needs versus what are thern“desirements”. Fundamentally, both the System Life Cycle functions (process architecting) andrnthe System Functions (product architecting) need to be addressed in this way and in an integratedrnfashion. Each system level would address both the System Life-Cycle Function as well as thernSystem Functions.