Is Agile Too Fragile for Space-Based Systems Engineering?

Abstract

High safety and performance requirements drive the mission criticality of space exploration systems. There is often only one chance for mission success, and failure can be fatal. Although proximate causes of failure are often technical, root causes are usually mismanagement of the social context, leading to human error. Thus, while needing to maintain safety standards and faced with budgetary cuts and industry globalization, the space industry is driven to consider alternate methodologies by which to achieve success and limit failure. While Agile practices produce much interest within all aspects of mission-critical systems engineering, there is not much supporting data with respect to specific applicability of practices within the space industry. The need to review space-based systems engineering methodologies and to contemplate the applicability of disparate software engineering techniques, such as Agile, motivates the following research objective: The goal of this research is to identify which Agile practices, if any, are desirable and suitable for space-based systems engineering. Although some Agile practices may be discarded outright, others seem quite useful and should be given consideration. Scrum and eXtreme Programming (XP) show particular potential as does practicing hybrid approaches that combine Agile practices with existing formal methodologies and engineering standards.

Integration and Verification Approach of ISTSat-1 CubeSat

“…These characteristics, which minimize the cost of hardware design rework, enable the application of iterative processes to hardware design, which goes somewhat against Carson's conclusion that agile systems engineering is not possible except for software development [13]. This view is also shared in other studies of the applicability of agile principles to aerospace projects, which exclusively focus on software development [14,15], and on literature arguing in favor of agile application to systems engineering but focusing on virtual artefacts rather than actual working hardware prototypes [16,17].…”

Can embedded space system development benefit from agile practices?

“…In [15], agile methods and their applicability to space system engineering are considered. Some agile practices and methods, such as test-driven development (TDD), Scrum, and XP are seen to be very useful and should be given consideration.…”

“…It is stated that more supporting data needs to be collected with respect to the specific applicability of agile practices in the space industry, e.g. through case studies, mapping formal processes with agile methods, and establishing a database of lessons learned [15].…”