Space Engineering Intern

SAIC

Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)

Summer 2022

This internship focused on learning MBSE, SysML, and UAF to develop novel system models and architectures for the SAIC National Security and Space Sector.

Background

Science Application International Corporation (SAIC) is a government contractor and information technology support company based in Virginia. The National Security and Space Sector focuses on crucial space mission integration, provides systems development, integration and engineering in addition to launch and operational services for our nation’s civilian, defense and intelligence community customers.

During Summer 2022, I was an unclassified Space Engineering Intern working on a project that supported one of SAIC’s space systems integration contracts. I worked with Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) to develop novel system models and architectures.

MBSE and system architecture is a new innovation in the field of Systems Engineering that builds upon the present-day document-based approach. Systems Engineering today is based on manually creating a collection of separate, disconnected documents. This causes struggles such as maintaining consistency across documents as an architecture evolves to outdated documents that can end up with major time and money waste. MBSE aims to solve these issues by facilitating the linkage of system processes into a single interactive space through modeling languages and tools. This allows for enhanced communication, manages complexity, and improves the overall quality of systems.

My Involvement

Two other interns and I, whom have never heard of such a thing, were briefed on the concept of MBSE and were asked to develop system model templates for use in the classified environment. Our mentors also discussed developing a report creation functionality to create an HTML reviewable for stakeholders as well as tackle a lingering industry problem: UAF and SysML integration.

To begin, we first had to learn what UAF and SysML were. The Unified Architecture Framework (UAF) is an architecture framework that is used to model a system at an enterprise level. Systems Modeling Language (SysML) is a visual language used for creating MBSE models.

These two topics are simultaneously the names of two different types of profiles. The UAF profile is a modeling view that uses certain elements and diagrams to capture the UAF architecture and creates a Systems of Systems. The SysML profile applies at the lower systems level, with different elements and diagrams. This is used to create an individual System of Interest model. Both profiles use the SysML language. We also used Cameo Enterprise Architecture as the tool in which we developed all of our models.

To tackle the problem at hand, the interns and I split up the project into four goals:

Create a very simplistic UAF model that covers strategic, operational, personnel, and resource domains to produce a model-based Concept of Operations (ConOps)
Use model data to generate a HTML ConOps deliverable for stakeholder review (stretch is to make a Word Document as well)
Create unclassified SysML models for a satellite and ground station
Develop connections between UAF (Systems of Systems) and SysML SE (System Decomp.) for top-to-bottom mission model integration

To achieve this, we used several resources to learn the required skills, languages, and methodologies. We utilized Lenny Delligatti’s SysML Distilled, example models, No Magic documentation, and research papers. SAIC’s Digital Engineering department additionally held a Hands-On Lab that introduced system decomposition and stepped us through building a model in SysML. This was the first time that this lab was held in the unclassified environment and was taught to interns.

I had developed an interest in SysML, so I split off to work on the SysML models. In the end, I had two full models completed: a satellite and a ground station. These models included logical architecture, operations, and behavior elements, but were broad enough to allow for modelers to build upon and change it.

I also laid out groundwork for integration the very different environments of UAF and SysML. With different elements and diagrams, it is not intuitive to put the two into one model. However, a combination would allow for complete top-to-bottom, enterprise-to-system integration and could encase an entire mission under one model. To achieve this, I mapped out several domains in UAF and SysML that related and uses matrices to create connections between the two. With both models under one file, the program could then tell that certain elements related, even though they were developed in different profiles.