Space

From a blank whiteboard to an ECSS-ready Product Assurance organisation — for an ESA Earth observation mission

Project details

Customer: LSS GmbH

Branch: Space

Period: 12/2020 – 12/2021

The challenge

A space company in the Munich area had won the contract for the deployable reflector assembly (DRA) of ESA’s CIMR mission.

The project carried full ECSS Product Assurance obligations, but no Product Assurance organisation, no tailored PA Plan and no supporting evidence structure were yet in place. All three had to be established before the next review cycle began.

Cooperation

Together, we created the three foundations the project required:

A Product Assurance Plan tailored against ECSS-Q-ST-10C and defensible in discussions with ESA.
An evidence and tooling structure capable of surviving future personnel changes.
A Product Assurance team able to operate the system independently, including the interfaces to Engineering, Project Management and the prime contractor.

What we have achieved

Outcomes that remained after the engagement:

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A functioning Product Assurance organisation

My customer had the necessary plans and structures to implement product assurance according to ECSS standards.

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An independent team

At the end of the collaboration, my client had a team that was able to independently and successfully fulfill ESA’s product assurance requirements for the next project phase.

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