The development of the software product assurance requirements of the European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) is embarking on several major programs that will incorporate extensive degrees of autonomy, requiring software to be developed on a scale, complexity, and level of functional criticality greater than encountered before on ESA programs. The authors chart the development of the agency's software product assurance requirements. They describe the functional reliability and safety categorization schemes used, the analysis and failure categorization schemes used, the analysis and failure tolerance approaches and how the software safety and reliability studies conducted by the agency have influenced software requirements.<>