With the necessity of developing robust integrated systems health management (ISHM) systems across the multiple platforms under development by Exploration Systems such as CEV and CLV, the ability to design and manage the complexity of a multi-layered, multi-generational system is essential. Issues such as common core vehicle development, variant vs. mission-specific ISHM tailoring, autonomous vs. human-in-the-loop vehicle health monitoring, vehicle state tracking across multiple mission launches, multi-decade ISHM software integration/testing/configuration management, distributed interrogation/store-forward ISHM data exchanges, secure/trusted remote system updates and upgrades, and flexible future growth-compatible ISHM architectures offer a plethora of pitfalls that can limit the ability to meet Exploration Systems' goals of affordable and reusable ISHM systems.
An approach will be discussed that defines characteristics of a distributed system management architecture to address the evolution of ISHM development for programs such as CEV and CLV using integrated systems engineering methods. Given the near-term focus toward the developing and launching CEV as the next human flight system by no later than 2012, specification of an general architectural framework that can be evolved and adapted for block upgrades to CEV and CLV is essential. Imposing ISHM architecture definitions on system segments, elements and subsystems while requiring contractors to deliver model representations of flight hardware and software that implement ISHM interface specs offers an immediate go-forward methodology to support the current philosophy for developing and deploying CEV and CLV in the next decade.