System Models to Reduce Mission Design Time and Manage Risk: The Mars Microprobe Mission Case Study

New approaches to modelling spacecraft system are being tested at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in order to better understand and quantify the interactions among spacecraft subsystems and mission variables and thereby understand and manage mission risk. Ultimately the goal is to enable the design of lower cost missions and to reduce the time between system concept and launch. This paper will present the New Millennium Deep Space 2 system model developed using NuThena's Foresight program. The system tool models the physical and media access control layers of the telecom relay link, the capacity and temperature of the batteries, and the data generated by the science payload. The event driven simulation is activated by a sequence of events file, an instrument requirements file and a set of environmental inputs. The model described has been used to select subsystem components, perform system trades, and visualize data return scenarios.