Since its inception in 1996 the ECSS organisation has codified more than 120 standards, containing around 25.000 requirements for the development and operations of European Space Systems.
These standards are used in invitations to tender and business agreements for implementing the space related activities. They are key actors for facilitating the communication between the European partners, for sharing knowledge and optimizing the development and operations efforts through the overall Space Business which make them different to “standard” project requirements.
ECSS is also developing and maintaining:
- handbooks that provide background information, orientation, advice and recommendations related to specific engineering, quality or management disciplines, specific techniques, technologies, processes or activities
- technical memorandum that provide useful information to the space community on specific subjects.
The ECSS information is widely used by all European entities (ESA, national Space Agencies and Industry) involved in the development and operations life cycle of the Space Systems.
ECSS ensures the maintenance of all standards, handbooks and technical memoranda. ECSS provides also support to their users including processing related feedback. The different publications of any standard are by nature permanent since there is no obligation for the users of a standard to upgrade in line with the related standard upgrade.
Currently the ECSS documentation is mainly available in MS Word and PDF. To facilitate the exchange and utilisation of the ECSS requirements, the ECSS Standards are also available in IBM Rational DOORS ® modules.
The ECSS organisation intends to move forward towards the full digital management of the ECSS system and related information. The first step in this move consists of developing and deploying a new ECSS requirements management system called E-RMS. A dedicated task force has elaborated user requirements for the implementation of such a system. It has also defined the activities considered necessary to arrive at such a system fulfilling the ECSS needs in a corresponding Statement of Work (SoW). A formal approach is used to model the information managed by the E-RMS and related information exchanges. A first draft of this model is available for the purpose of illustrating the modelling approach to be followed during the overall E-RMS information modelling.
As there are potentially many different procurement and development options for the E-RMS system, the Agency has decided to initiate a first round of consultation with interested industries, offering this briefing to present the needs and answer any questions, putting them in a position to prepare an outline proposal for the ECSS, expected by 19/11.
On this information day we will present the material and provide background information as required. There is also the opportunity to interact with experts in order to ensure that interested companies get the best possible understanding of this intended development.
The outline proposals are expected to be submitted by 19/11 in electronic form to katleen.gerlo@esa.int.
