Data-Oriented Modeling for Spacecraft Design

TL;DR

This paper introduces a data-oriented MBSE approach using ECS architecture to reduce complexity and improve integration in spacecraft design, demonstrated through a prototype for interplanetary missions.

Contribution

It adapts ECS architecture from gaming to spacecraft MBSE, enabling immutable data storage and simplified analysis integration.

Findings

Reduced deployment complexity in spacecraft design processes

Simplified testing and data management

Maintained traceability benefits of traditional systems engineering

Abstract

Spacecraft development costs remain high despite falling launch costs, in part because Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) tools carry the complexity of the object-oriented programming paradigm: tightly coupled data and logic, mutable state, and rigid class hierarchies that resist integration with discipline-specific analysis tools. This paper presents a data-oriented approach to MBSE that adapts the Entity-Component-System (ECS) architecture from the video game industry. Design data is stored as immutable, format-agnostic components in a generic data system; stateless analysis functions operate on this data through templates and containerized tools within a continuous integration pipeline. A prototype implementation, VVERDAD (https://github.com/VisVivaSpace/vverdad-prototype), demonstrates the approach on an example interplanetary mission concept, showing how data-oriented principles can reduce deployment complexity, simplify testing, and preserve the traceability benefits of document-based systems engineering.