XTCE12 — MM-001 What missions need

Source: Mario Merri Mario.Merri@esa.int
Description : In an ideal world, the Project Manager of a new space mission would

like to have a
simple life and put a single requirement to the Spacecraft Prime Contractor that
reads something like: "It shall be possible to export the operational database into
XTCE (ref. .)".

To have project managers buying in XTCE, we should be able to demonstrate the
goodness of the requirement above and explain that the Prime Contractor will have
to produce a simple tool to translate from their internal DB format into XTCE.
Therefore, the questions are:

a) are the XTCE specifications enough to unambiguosly develop the software tool
that translates into XTCE?

b) Where should a new mission start from? (missions tend to re-use what has
been done by other mission before. In the absece of a predecessor is there any
help that we coulf provide to missions?)

Clarification and possibly real-mission examples should be provided to clarify the
above.
Resolution: Update introductory section and consider development of associated

tools (e.g.
validator).

Future XTCE profile specifications and validation tools

Some communities of use (US Government and CCSDS) are establishing more specific restrictions that will either be published as companion specifications in OMG or as standalone specifications within the community of use. The creation of a validation tool would be appropriate for the community of use to verify that a valid XTCE document meets the more stringent restrictions.