In more than two decades of operation the CDF has performed more than 300 studies to date, their subjects ranging from CubeSats to Moon bases, space telescopes to systems of systems, even audacious probes to the outer planets – along with the very first iterations of numerous ESA missions that have gone on to fly, such as the Sun-observing Solar Orbiter or ESA’s flying software lab, OPS-SAT.

“Our previous software, the Open Concurrent Design Tool, has been in use for the last eight years, and applied in more than 150 studies,” explains Ilaria Roma, heading the CDF. “Now we have adopted a brand new replacement, the Concurrent Model-based Engineering Tool, COMET, developed for us by RHEA Group through ESA’s General Support Technology Programme.