Improvements in Spacecraft Assembly, Integration and Test

As the scale, cost, and strategic importance of electro-optical (EO) space-based sensor programs continue to increase, the need for efficiency in the Assembly, Integration, and Test (AI&T) phase of production becomes paramount to mission success. MDA has a serious and immediate need to reduce the schedule and cost impact associated with this phase of the effort. FTI proposes an innovative approach to streamline AI&T workflow by implementing a fully-integrated data architecture which will facilitate faster analysis turn-around times and cost saving. FTI will install a central database to manage the data stream and act as a historical record. Database stored procedures calls will be added to test equipment control software to log co-referenced telemetry and meta-information directly. These technological improvements will facilitate the automation of key analysis routines. New and innovative methods of controlling and automating the analysis of test data will be developed and incorporated into an existing software framework. This will permit the display of analysis products instead of simply raw data to the Subject Matter Expert (SME). The FTI team believes this integrated approach has the potential to help make substantial reductions to the cost and duration for AI&T of future MDA Space Systems tests.