Search Results

Since its introduction at INPE, in the late 1960s, Systems Engineering has passed through phases of greater and lesser importance. Three different phases are clearly recognized. The first two phases are closely associated with efforts to develop space systems. The third and present phase is associated to the recent growth in the importance of Systems Engineering to the development of the contemporary large and complex systems. This paper is a summary review of the history of Systems Engineering at INPE from its inception to the present.

Systems are becoming increasingly more complex. To follow this increasingly complexity, systems engineering must evolve rapidly with the introduction of new methodologies, processes, tools, etc. Due to this rapid evolution, little attention is dedicated to the study of the history of its evolution. Currently there is the initiative of installation of a chapter of INCOSE (International Council on Systems Engineering) in Brazil and from this initiative emerged the interest of recovering the history of systems engineering in the country. There are indications that the introduction of systems engineering into Brazil occurred in the late 1960's, directly from NASA and that its first applications in Brazil were in Space Systems Engineering. This paper recovers the origins of systems engineering, of its introduction into Brazil, and of its use in space systems engineering.

This paper presents the preliminary results of an "a posteriori" exercise of application of a Requirements Traceability Automation Tool (RT tool) to a set of documents. The documents have been prepared according to established Space System Engineering methodologies and with attention to text quality, but without attention to requirements traceability because the processes and methodologies used during their preparation predates the emergence of the processes and methodologies developed by Requirements Engineering (RE). This study is intended to determine some of the benefits of using a RT tool when compared with the previously used processes and methodologies. The set of documents under scrutiny have been prepared in the frame of the development of the CBERS-3 satellite (China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite) and is composed of system, subsystem and equipment specification and covering documents related to the Electrical Power Subsystem (EPS) of the satellite.