Incremental modeling and validation of space mission using AADLv2

The development process of space mission software has to go through numerous steps, from early dimensioning factors at system level (e.g. energy to be consumed by a system, weight of equipment) to the description of low-level software concerns (tasks period, etc.). Most of the time, mission components are taken or derived from existing projects and use well-known best practices: hardware and software concerns are designed from a set of existing components, and are usually well tested and documented. However, teams, with different technical backgrounds, and development approaches, achieve the design. This adds incidental complexity to the design of a common architecture and its verification. Consequently, even if design of new systems is close to existing ones, the recurring key challenge is to reconcile the different views built by these teams, and to ensure that all properties are preserved and validated. This calls for an integrated process that would combine modeling, refinement and incremental validation. To investigate potential approaches that would overcome these issues, the European Space Agency commissioned a study to evaluate AADLv2 modeling patterns to support such a process, and ensure consistency between each development step. This is an extension of the TASTE (see reference 8) process that tackles the implementation of systems from a well-defined architecture of the system, which is also based on AADLv2. This paper reports the current state of our investigation