FCG/017 Satellite and Mission Simulator

On behalf of Army HQ, Defence Equipment & Support is seeking to procure a modular, event driven fully data representative satellite simulator for use in design, development, integration, test and operation of space segment assets; this will be used in support of the ARTEMIS mission.

ARTSIM, as the baseline deliverable, will provide a set of generic default satellite configurations which can be used for the analysis of a range of mission operations and capability objectives. The system must take a flexible, distributed architecture approach, providing for a range of spacecraft components to be simulated to a level of fidelity which can be determined by the team utilising the tool. The system shall utilise high quality GUI and animations to visualise satellite and orbit configurations. MOD require the capability to deploy ARTSIM as a stand-alone software process, running on a single machine, or as a VM deployed on a hypervisor, or as a cloud based application running in a container.

Simulation of the satellite systems, subsystems and interfaces in both real-time and simulated time, will provide an operationally ready capability, which is able to represent, as simulation instances, a range of satellite implementations (including constellations), with a full range of orbit configurations. ARTSIM shall enable user (local or remote) control of the simulation including setting parameters and starting/stopping the simulation. ARTSIM shall have a set of default underlying functions, but also enable user definition of system mathematical models including orbit function, satellite function and unit models. ARTSIM shall include interface connectivity functionality, enabling connection to hardware through electrical interfacing to support in the loop testing via a test harness. Software interfacing shall enable connection to external databases, networks or remote control i.e TT&C databases and external Check-out systems

The ARTSIM product shall support the simulation of system level configurations in the different mission phases (off-launcher separation, and solar panel deployment), definition of the reference systems, the functional block diagrams of the satellite, payload and equipment layouts and functional paths.

The ARTSIM product shall support the development and understanding of satellite level system budgets including:

• Mass

• Inertial properties

• Unit power consumption for all operational modes

• Power available in different mission phases