Standards Development

Scope

This standard specifies the basis, principles, processes, contents, and science requirements document SRDof the requirements analysis for space experiments. This standard is applicable to space life science and human research, microgravity physics, space astronomy and earth science and Space technology and utilization. Space experiments in other fields can be referred to and executed. This standard is led by scientists, transforming scientific needs into engineering language, establishing communication bridges for project management, scientific researchers, and experimental facility developers, and providing services for engineering implementation. The deployment of this standard aims to promote international space cooperation and provide technical guidance for international projects. The main audience of this standard includes but is not limited to the requirements management/system engineering process owners of the customs and suppliers, programme/project managers managing the space programmes, the chief engineers and the quality managers.

Purpose

Space experiment (SE) is a complex system that integrates scientific research and engineering
technology. The problem faced in developing this complex system is how to gradually transform the
initial scientific experimental requirements of scientists into specific development requirements for
engineers, and how to integrate these works into a technically reasonable and coordinated
experimental system. On the basis of meeting scientific research requirements, the system becomes
an effective component of the larger system which it belongs to. This process is the requirements
analysis for space experiments.
The technology, efficiency, and applicability of space exploration and experimental research equipment
are crucial for achieving scientific and utilization goals. After the determination of space science
experimental tasks, the design of specific experimental plans depends on the available resource
conditions provided by the engineering tasks and their space platforms (including aircraft or payloads),
as well as the experimental support capabilities which the experimental equipment can provide.
However, due to the scarcity of space experiment opportunities and the strong constraints of space
experiment conditions, most scientific experimental researchers currently lack practical experience
related to engineering projects. When designing experimental plans, they cannot timely understand and master the available experimental resources and technical support conditions that engineering tasks and space platforms can provide, and it is also difficult to systematically and comprehensively propose functional performance requirements for experimental devices, which often affects the rationality and feasibility of experimental plan. Correspondingly, due to the inability of experiment facility developer to comprehensively and accurately grasp the experimental requirements, the technical status of experimental devices is always difficult to determine, or the determined technical status cannot fully meet the needs of SEs. This change and uncertainty greatly reduce development efficiency, increase development costs, and affect scientific output. Therefore, it is necessary to study the engineering requirements analysis of SEs.
At present, aerospace technology and space utilization technology are developing rapidly. International
space exploration activities are flourishing. Countries such as the United States, Europe, Russia,
Japan, and India have deployed a series of scientific satellite missions and achieved a large number of
scientific achievements. China has made breakthrough progress in manned spaceflight engineering,
lunar and deep space exploration engineering, space science satellites and other tasks. In 2023, China Space Station (CSS) have completed construction and entered the utilization and development stage.
Conducting space experiments in the new stage has become an important task. In addition, multiple SEs have been completed in CSS.

The standard will summarize the experience of conducting SEs on the CSS, develop the requirements analysis for SEs, propose an analysis method and process for SEs requirements led by scientists. Through the collaborative work of scientific researcher, project management and experiment facility developer, a comprehensive analysis and mastery of complex and diverse scientific experiment requirements, available resources and technical conditions for full mission profile engineering tasks will be conducted which will form the basis for the implementation of various projects by all parties. The method can guide scientists through engineering language to systematically describe the relevant requirements for hardware devices and engineering implementation while conducting scientific exploration, also providing more comprehensive and standardized design inputs for engineer to design or improve experimental devices. Ultimately, to ensure achieving the goal of SEs, improving the success rate and level of space science experimental projects, obtaining more valuable scientific research result and improving the input-output ratio of space science experimental projects effectively.