Applying the model-based concept framework to capturing the safety aspects of the suborbital human spaceflight missions

Abstract

Safety issues are one of the core attributes of the projects of the New Space economy such as SpaceShipTwo and New Shepard. While these projects are on their way to shifting the paradigms in space tourism and transportation, the question of tourist safety remains in the cornerstone for a successful operations. One of the important questions we encounter when we start the development of complex systems such as the suborbital transportation and space tourism systems is: what are the concepts available and how can these concepts be represented using strictly defined ontology and model semantics? And finally – how this model-based information would support the system architect in keeping track of safety aspects? In this work we present a model-based concept framework that aims to address this issue. First a concept framework methodology is presented, after which we demonstrate its applicability to suborbital human spaceflight missions–SpaceShipTwo and New Shepard. The analytical conceptual difference between these concepts is demonstrated. The proposed framework includes: the information about the stakeholders and their needs; the solution-neutral environment (the problem statement) in which we formulate the functional intent; the solution-specific environment (solution statement) in which we see the possible solutions; the integrated concept revealed by means of the decomposition of such solution into internal elements and functions; and the concept of operations. Each one of these entries of the concept framework has a counterpart represented in conceptual modeling languages, such as Object-Process Methodology (OPM) or the System Modeling Language (SysML). Such a model-based concept framework encodes the core information required to define a suborbital tourism concept and represent it in a digital environment. We believe this will become a powerful tool to support the makers of architectural decisions that lead to concept and eventually to architecture, and that provides a safe operations for suborbital tourist services.