The development, integration, and test of satellite ground systems offers significant opportunities to trade cost, schedule, technical capabilities, quality, and risk. However, given that spacecraft missions often have fixed schedules to meet launch windows or maintain constellation health, schedule may become the driving imperative as a launch date approaches. This paper describes a framework for satellite ground system project offices to manage the trade-offs of technical risk and capabilities in order to maintain schedule. The approach established in this paper begins with a prioritization of technical requirements in order to determine launch and mission criticality. Once these priorities are established, candidates for ¿¿¿off-ramps¿¿¿ to eliminate, reduce, or defer technical capability, or to increase technical risk can be defined. Subsequently, as the development, integration, and test schedules progress, trades can be conducted to maintain schedule at the expense of lower-priority requirements, or by increasing the risk posture of the system. The results of these trades, along with the execution status of the off-ramps, can provide a project management team with additional metrics and insight into the health of the project and their ability to meet schedule milestones. The off-ramp framework helps ensure that ground capabilities remain decoupled from the overall system critical path and provides a format in which trades can be analyzed in a structured manner. Off-ramps used as a stand-alone tool or in conjunction with a project's ability to conduct post-launch updates can be a powerful management tool to maintain cost and schedule.
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