The Space Suppliers And Manufacturer Database to Support Concurrent Engineering Sessions at DLR

Abstract

Concurrent Engineering is a modern and effective discipline of the systems engineering process. During Concurrent Engineering sessions, an interdisciplinary team negotiates optimal configurations of the intended space system. The Space Suppliers And Manufacturers (SSAM) database was created with the goal to support engineers during the design process. The CE engineer can search through SSAM by using an interface to specify the right subsystem or component resulting in a list of companies with each listing including the company profile as well as available product sheets. The Java based system consists of seven main subsystem categories (e.g. structure, power, thermal, etc.) and 61 component categories (e.g. batteries, solar cells, reaction wheels, patch antennas, etc.). Over 200 companies are currently listed with over thousands of different products related to space industry. Long-term scope of SSAM is the active involvement of the space industry (the supplier side). Here, the companies shall be animated to maintain their product portfolio via an online portal and add new products once they are introduced to the market. So CE engineers and project teams have always the latest update on the available subsystems and products.