Implementation of Fault Management Capabilities for the Flying Laptop Small Satellite Project through a Failure-Aware System Model

Abstract

At the Institute of Space Systems at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, a team of doctoral students is currently developing the small satellite Flying Laptop. The design has been performed completely in-house, including the development and implementation of the Flying Laptop on-board software. The current work supports the implementation of Fault Management capabilities in the on-board software and allows for ground station failure analyses during operation of the satellite. We developed a SysML profile, the State Effect Tracking profile, based on the ideas of State Analysis to describe system behavior in-depth. The profile allows the Systems Engineer to model the propagation of effects and failures by tracing along physical relationships between the states associated with components and interfaces. The profile is explained in detail through an example based on the imaging system onboard the Flying Laptop. A further analysis is performed on the telecommunications command chain on the satellite, and a basic model is presented that illustrates how the SET profile has helped to elucidate a potential critical failure within the system as-designed.