Active GMV participation in EGS-CC, the ESA's new ground infrastructure

The European Ground Systems – Common Core (EGS-CC) is a European initiative to develop a new ground software infrastructure for the Monitoring and Control (M&C) of space systems. The initiative was initiated in 2009 by ESA and is currently supported by the European System Integrators, including AIRBUS
Defence and Space, Thales Alenia Space and OHB System and also by the French, German and UK national space agencies, CNES, DLR and UKSA. 

The EGS-CC is intended to be used in the spacecraft Assembly, Integration and Testing environment, as well as in actual flight operations. The system will therefore allow for a smooth transition between both environments in terms of databases and procedures, which in turn will reduce risks and costs. It is thus envisaged that the wide variety of systems currently used for AIT and operations will be reduced to systems based on a common kernel used throughout phases by subsystemists, integrators, and operations teams.

The EGS-CC is a “Core”; this means that it will provide the basis for the actual M&C development adapted by extension to user needs and the mission itself. The EGS-CC will however remain as a core that provides the level of commonality that ensures the aforementioned synergies and advantages. The EGS-CC C/D phase is funded under the ESA GSTP program with contributions from a large number of countries, among them Spain with a very significant contribution.

EGS-CC is currently at the beginning of its more than 4-year C/D Phase and is being developed by a multinational consortium of around 20 companies. GMV is playing an important role with an active participation in system-level activities and two engineers in the System Architects and Integration and Validation teams, as well as being responsible for the implementation of three important components. The EGS-CC is based on a layered architecture and makes use of state-of-the-art technologies. In addition to GMV’s participation in the EGS-CC development itself, the GMV branch in Portugal is also starting a GSTP study to analyze the impact of the new EGS-CC in the existing ESTEC Avionics Test Bench used for space systems testing.