On the Needs and Challenges of Model-Based Engineering for Spaceflight Software Systems

Spaceflight software continues to experience exponential growth as functionality migrates from hardware to software. The resulting complexity of these mission critical systems demands new approaches to software systems engineering in order to effectively manage the development efforts and ensure that reliability is not compromised. Model-based systems / software engineering (MBE) approaches present attractive solutions to address the size and complexity through abstraction and analytical models. However, there are many challenges that must be addressed before MBE approaches can be effectively adopted on a large scale across an entire system. In this paper, we discuss some of the key motivators and challenges based on our experiences with flight software programs employing elements of MBE.