ABSTRACT
This chapter represents the definition of a defects assessment process and the results of the application of this process to a space systems defects dataset. It presents an analysis on trends, common (and uncommon) problems and their causes, and look at the general picture of critical defects within the software development lifecycle of space systems, considering our dataset of 1070 defects. The results are intended to help engineers in tackling the problems starting from the most frequent ones, instead of dealing with them one by one, as is traditionally done in industry nowadays. Furthermore, authors could not find in the research literature any complete study focused on defects in mission- and safety-critical systems, nor an extensive and complete classification or root cause analysis that relates the results of ISVV with the development lifecycle parameters of the systems under study.
