ABSTRACT
The range of digital spacecraft development is very broad, covering the whole lifecycle of spacecraft product development, which includes digital product design/digital performance analysis and simulation, digital manufacturing, digital testing and digital operation/maintenance and in-orbit management. The horizontal disciplines involved in digital spacecraft development include computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided engineering, computer-aided process planning (CAPP), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), computer-aided testing and product data management (PDM). This chapter highlights the digital design of spacecraft systems. According to the different development stages of a spacecraft, 3D spacecraft design models can be divided into the 3D model for conceptual design and the 3D model for detailed design. The digital spacecraft development is transitioning from improving the design efficiency to changing the spacecraft development mode. MBE has become the embodiment of modern advanced manufacturing system and the representative of future digital manufacturing system.
