A Design Process for an Interplanetary Extravehicular Activity System

This paper describes a design process for an extravehicular system suitable for accomplishing a set of specific missions in an interplanetary environment. This process is based upon project management, system engineering, and strategic management concepts. The process is a sequential set of incremental actions which build upon prior activities in order to reach a design solution. Each process step considers a specific goal, environmental influences, as well as the general mission. The paper first addresses the overall mission in order to produce a set of functional requirements for each of the major mission components. The extravehicular system is then developed via a similar process to satisfy those functional requirements. The end result of this process is an extravehicular system specifically tailored to accomplish the mission.