Software engineering

Elon Musk is pushing SpaceX to have his spacecraft prepared to launch for a manned aircraft to travel to Mars by 2025 (a good five years before NASA intends to get there). SpaceX has created the SpaceX Software Initiative, a SpaceX organization with the sole purpose of developing software to create a GUI for the HUD and instrument panel for pilots. Also, experimental tablets or hand-helds are being developed for compatibility with accessing the ships systems, logs, and information based on user access privileges which require a tablet-based version of the software.

Requirements will dictate the procedures taken within this project; SpaceX requires the project to be complete by December of 2023. The project will be very expensive to cover quality and completeness of requirements because safety, quality and functionality are prioritized so that the crew of the spacecraft to Mars will be as safe as possible for the venture. Absolute perfection in the software functionality is required; SpaceX has high standards for their systems and crew safety is a priority. Our organization has five years produce the product; three years before the SpaceX spacecraft launch.

This task contains portions of material that were originally submitted during the 8/15/2017 to 9/21/2017 in SWE410-1703B-01 with Professor Imad Al Saeed.

Given this amount of time and projected scope of the project, we will be utilizing the spiral software development methodology. This methodology has been chosen, despite potential budget conflicts, because of it’s unique advantage in determining risks early on.

Spiral is an agile software development methodology. One of the main focuses of spiral is risk management. This is a secure prototyping methodology that involves excessive testing during development of prototypes and planning in multiple iterations. Planning, risk analysis, engineering and evaluation are four stages of the spiral methodology, each is returned to incrementally; spiral brings the development team through each phase in order then starts again. Spiral supports prototypes extensively, increasing the chances of success for the final product. Strengths and weaknesses are analyzed for each prototype included in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Multiple prototypes will likely be developed based on these analyses. Requirements can be captured more accurately with the importance placed on them by the spiral model. The first phase is to determine objectives, and this phase is revisited through the SDLC. This allows requirements to be created, repeatedly attended to and changed as needed. (Powell-Morse, 2016).

Early presentation of the system is available to users through extensive prototypes. Prototypes are continuously created throughout the system so users may also see how the software is progressed. (TutorialsPoint, 2017).

The image above shows the image of a spiral divided into four parts with descriptors throughout. Each section of the spiral is part of the four phases of the spiral model. Determining objectives is the first part as you progress through the spiral from the center. It can be noted when looking though the image that risk analysis is performed several times as well as prototype creation. Planning is performed several times as well. These portions of the spiral methodology are beneficial to the risk analysis and exemplary development of the software.

Committee for Review of Oversight Mechanisms for Space Shuttle Flight Software Process. (1993). An Assessment of Space Shuttle Flight Software Development Process. Retrieved on November 21, 2017 from https://www.nap.edu/read/2222/chapter/5#40

Powell-Morse, A. (September 29, 2016). Spiral model: Software Development for Critical Project. Retrieved on November 21, 2017 from https://airbrake.io/blog/sdlc/spiral-model

TutorialsPoint. (2017). SDLC - Spiral Model. Retrieved on September 6, 2017 from https://www.tutorialspoint.com/sdlc/sdlc_spiral_model.htm

Gurendo, D. (October 26, 2015). Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Spiral Model. Retrieved on September 6, 2017 from https://xbsoftware.com/blog/software-development-life-cycle-spiral-model/