A Modeling Software Toolchain for Advanced Satellite Mission Design and Management

Kurzfassung

This paper aims to present a complete and customizable software toolchain, developed at the DLR Institute of Satellite Geodesy and Inertial Sensing, for the research and development of novel technology in satellites, ranging from quantum inertial sensors and atomic clocks to quantum communications and formation flying. It consists of: an advanced satellite orbit simulation library developed and maintained by field experts for over two decades; one desktop application, VENQS, for the versioning, dependency management and distribution of the science modules; and MultiStage, a software for requirements engineering and data management. The development and prioritization of new features is managed using an agile framework with Gitlab. Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) is used for the DevOps (development and operations) of the software products. Some examples of projects that have used this toolchain are also demonstrated. Research in novel satellite technology requires advanced modeling for the lifecycle of a space mission. The resulting projects become more complex with a need for a structured workflow for its multiple facets such as the research software development, planning, testing and data management. The aim of the presented solution is especially useful for preliminary analysis or feasibility studies where the costs of licenses of supplementary proprietary software are too high. Furthermore, highly specialized use cases require additional development and extensibility, which needs a level of customizability that commercial software cannot provide. We aim to overcome this gap in providing a complete toolchain for such studies. For the users of the toolchain, both the applications, VENQS and MultiStage, aim to be as user-friendly as possible. This includes platform independency, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and Application Programming Interface (API) for interactions with the databases and repositories. Additionally, a python-scripting interface enables developers to extend/modify the functionalities tailored to the project’s needs. All saved files are text based, enabling collaborative work with the help of any Version Control System (VCS). The orbit propagation codebase has been tested, built, documented and released with automated CI/CD pipelines. This also helps future contributors or project partners for a smooth and error-free integration of their work via well-established workflows. Whereas, for the users, the distribution of science modules (as packages) facilitates efficient modeling of satellite missions and faster on-boarding of new members with a standardized configuration set-up of the project. Concluding, this toolchain allows the cutting-edge orbit propagation and analysis of satellite missions throughout their lifecycle.