Standardisation
Standardisation is the basis of industry competitiveness and opens the way for exports as more countries around the world adopt the ECSS standards.
How it works
The leading standardisation Boards are the ESA Standardisation
Steering Board (ESSB) and the ECSS Steering Board.
These boards are supported by 3 Technical Standardisation Boards (TSBs)
that cover the following domains:
The leading standardisation Boards are the ESA Standardisation
Steering Board (ESSB) and the ECSS Steering Board.
These boards are supported by 3 Technical Standardisation Boards (TSBs)
that cover the following domains:
Management Standardisation Board (MSB) – Management and Logistic standards
Quality Standardisation Board (QSB) – Product Assurance standards
Engineering Standardisation Board (ESB) – Engineering and Space Sustainability standards
The list of ESA approved standards (LEAS) is updated twice a year.
Some ongoing standardization activities
Two recent major activities are the ECSS evolution (ECSS 4.0) and the ESA mission classification.
These activities are related to improve the usability of the current ECSS standards and introduce simplifications by defining what the core requirements and the recommendations. Currently the ECSS Management discipline is the first set of documents processed in this context with an achievement expected by June 2022.
Dedicated Working Groups supported by relevant Stakeholders including Eurospace and SMEs have been set-up. The standardisation activity would introduce a higher risk/lower cost and faster delivery strategy based on mission classification.
The ESA missions classification will open the way to more use of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS).
Digitalisation platforms
Worth the digitalisation effort, we are progressing on the machine readable form of the complete set of ECSS requirements with a new Master Data Base in development with industry. A hand book for Machine Learning Qualification for Space Applications is under preparation.
EEE (components) standards and EEE COTS are being updated as well as standard for parts derating. Revision for electrical & electronic and photovoltaic components&assembly are being revised together with a new handbook for qualification of solar panel PVA, substrate and components.
A new standard for ASIC & FPGA engineering is being prepared and a standard for non-destructive testing has been recently finalised.
Long term hardware storage; a new handbook will be drafted soon.
Plastic packaging (ESCC9000P); a generic specification ESCC9000P (draft) should be ready in 2021 as an adaptation of the ESCC9000 standard for a plastic part.
Advanced technologies (e.g. 3D printing).
SDOs partners (Standardisation Organisations)
The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) was formed in 1982. It is a multinational forum for the development of communications & data systems standards for spaceflight. Space agencies discuss and collaborate on space data communications, with the primary goal of establishing interoperability between agency missions.
ECSS and CCSDS signed a MoU on 9 March 2009. The leading board for policy and directive is the CCSDS Management Council (CMC). This is supported by the CCSDS Engineering Steering Board (CESB), who manage standardisation activities in the various technical domains, such as Systems Engineering (SEA), Mission Operations and Information Management Service (MOIMS), Cross Support Services (CSS), Spacecraft Onboard Interface Services (SOIS), Space Link Services (SLS), Space Internetworking Services (SIS).
The European Commission (EC) mandated (M496) CEN/CENELEC for the development of a set of space standards on space application and on-ground applications.
To support the above mandate, a dedicated Space Technical Committee (TC5 ) was created, The TC5 is chaired by ESA/TEC-Q and supported by TEC-QES.
The following two terms were defined for space products covering the mandate:
- Upstream standards (Spacecraft & supporting infrastructure)
- Downstream standards (Users of the above e.g. GPS Sat Nav, etc)
As ECSS is recognised as the European development organisation of ‘upstream standards’, a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between CEN/CENELEC & ECSS covering:
- Transfer of existing standards into the CEN/CENELEC (EN) standardization system
- Collaborate in the development of documents of mutual interest
LINKS