Final thesis submitted December 2021 - degree awarded in 2022A considerable amount of data related to space mission design has been accumulated
since artificial satellites started to venture into space in the 1950s. This data has today
become an overwhelming volume of information, triggering a significant knowledge
reuse bottleneck at the early stages of space mission design. Meanwhile, virtual assistants,
text mining and Natural Language Processing techniques have become pervasive
to our daily life.
The work presented in this thesis is one of the first attempts to bridge the gap
between the worlds of space systems engineering and text mining. Several novel models
are thus developed and implemented here, targeting the structuring of accumulated
data through an ontology, but also tasks commonly performed by systems engineers
such as requirement management and heritage analysis. A first collection of documents
related to space systems is gathered for the training of these methods. Eventually, this
work aims to pave the way towards the development of a Design Engineering Assistant
(DEA) for the early stages of space mission design. It is also hoped that this work will
actively contribute to the integration of text mining and Natural Language Processing
methods in the field of space mission design, enhancing current design processes.A considerable amount of data related to space mission design has been accumulated
since artificial satellites started to venture into space in the 1950s. This data has today
become an overwhelming volume of information, triggering a significant knowledge
reuse bottleneck at the early stages of space mission design. Meanwhile, virtual assistants,
text mining and Natural Language Processing techniques have become pervasive
to our daily life.
The work presented in this thesis is one of the first attempts to bridge the gap
between the worlds of space systems engineering and text mining. Several novel models
are thus developed and implemented here, targeting the structuring of accumulated
data through an ontology, but also tasks commonly performed by systems engineers
such as requirement management and heritage analysis. A first collection of documents
related to space systems is gathered for the training of these methods. Eventually, this
work aims to pave the way towards the development of a Design Engineering Assistant
(DEA) for the early stages of space mission design. It is also hoped that this work will
actively contribute to the integration of text mining and Natural Language Processing
methods in the field of space mission design, enhancing current design processes
