Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) and design assurance process in the context of mitigation of design errors during the development of highly integrated and complex aerospace systems.

Over the years, aircraft and spacecraft designs incorporated highly integrated and/or complex systems that can manage complex scenarios during its operation. In addition to the inherent complexity and/or high level of integration of those systems, the development process applied to aerospace programs is also challenged by other factors: program schedule, budget, multidisciplinary teams, new industry emerging technologies, large number of different processes and procedures that guide the activities along the development life cycle, and others. Given the fact many tasks executed during the development of such systems require human interaction, that yields the introduction of design errors that can contribute to the occurrence of non-desired system behaviors during operation phase. It is already recognized by the civil aviation industry that it is unfeasible to have a deterministic test set to demonstrate that such systems are completely free of such design errors. In that context, a huge effort is applied by the industry, by using qualitative methods to mitigate the occurrence of design errors during the development phases. This paper discusses how MBSE methodology applied together with a design assurance process could prevent such design errors, and presents an analysis showing how some events in aerospace industry where a design error was one of the contributing factors could be avoided.