Work experience

• Dates (from – to)

January 2013 – Today

• Name and address of employer

Thales Alenia Space Italy (Rome)

• Type of business or sector

ItalianCompetence Centerfor Software Solutions

• Occupation or position held

Head of “Avionics Software” department of the Thales Alenia Space Italy (TASI) Software Solutions Competence Center & Avionics Software Architectures Expert.

• Main activities and responsibilities

Management of the PRIMA Platform Avionics Software Products and of the mission-specific deployments.

Production of on-board software for scientific instruments.

R&D activities for the deployment of the CCSDS SOIS and CFDP standards.

Specification, design and implementation of the Euclid File Management Service (FMS) and CCSDS File Delivery Protocol (CFDP) Demonstrator (EucliDem).

Specification, design and implementation of the On-board Algorithms Execution Environment (obAlex) for the specification, compilation and on-board execution of the OBCPs.

• Dates (from – to)

January 2011 – Today

• Name and address of employer

Thales Alenia Space Italy (Rome)

• Type of business or sector

ECSS PUS Working Group

• Occupation or position held

Observation Systems and Radars Business Unit, Satellite System Engineering Division, Avionics Department – Head Of “Data Handling & On-Board Sofware Engineering” department.

• Main activities and responsibilities

Member of the working group which is updating the ECSS-E-ST-70-41 standard from revision ‘A’ to revision ‘C’.

• Dates (from – to)

March 2009 – June 2013

• Name and address of employer

Thales Alenia Space Italy (Rome)

• Type of business or sector

GMES Sentinel-1 Avionics Software

• Occupation or position held

Observation Systems and Radars Business Unit, Satellite System Engineering Division, Avionics Department – Head Of “Data Handling & On-Board Software Engineering” department (since 1 January 2011).

• Main activities and responsibilities

·         Specification of the overall requirement baseline for both Nominal Mode ASW and Safe Mode ASW. This activity includes the tailoring of the ECSS-E-70-41A PUS standard for the Sentinel-1 mission.

·         Specification of the Platform Assemblies/Subsystems Management software requirements.

·         Specification of the Mil-Std-1553B Bus protocols for both Nominal Mode ASW and Safe Mode ASW.

·         Procurement of the Safe Mode ASW Applications (ESA ITT AO30140).

·         Sentinel-1 ASW Validation Responsible.

·         Member of the Sentinel-1A LEOP team at ESOC.

• Dates (from – to)

March 2009 – October 2009

• Name and address of employer

Thales Alenia Space Italy (Rome)

• Type of business or sector

GMES Sentinel-1/-2/-3 GPSR

• Occupation or position held

Observation Systems and Radars Business Unit, Satellite System Engineering Division, Avionics Department – Avionics Software Engineer

• Main activities and responsibilities

Specification of the Sentinels GPSR Common Mil-Std-1553B Bus Protocols Requirements.

• Dates (from – to)

March 2009 – December 2010

• Name and address of employer

Thales Alenia Space Italy (Rome)

• Type of business or sector

R&D Activities

• Occupation or position held

Observation Systems and Radars Business Unit, Satellite System Engineering Division, Avionics Department – Avionics Software Engineer

• Main activities and responsibilities

·         Definition of the requirements for the Automatic Generation of the On-Board Assemblies Manager (OBAM) Building Blocks. The OBAM concept has been also addressed in the “PRIMA Platform – A Scheme for Managing Equipment-dependent On-Board Functions and Impacts on the Avionics Software Production Process” paper, presented at Eurospace DASIA 2010 (Budapest). The activity consists of:

o    Defining and modelling the invariant characteristics of an assembly manager. This issue also covers the standardised interactions with the underlying PUS services (with particular reference to: telecommand verification, telemetry, monitoring, events, OBCPs, event-actions).

o    Defining and modelling the mission-dependent characteristics of an assembly manager.

o    Defining the basic set of PUS service subtypes associate to the assembly manager (for standardisation of the Ground operations involving the on-board assemblies).

o    Defining the generation rules to instantiate the assembly manager meta-model for a specific mission. The generation products at least include: software documentation, software architectural model, source code, TM/TC database.

• Dates (from – to)

January 2007 – February 2009

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

LEO Satellite On-Board Software

• Occupation or position held

Head of Software Systems Specification Department

• Main activities and responsibilities

As consultant at Thales Alenia Space, he was involved in the specification of the software requirements for the on-board software of the ESA Sentinel-1 satellite. Activities are being performed according to ECSS-E-ST-40 standards (SW development), to ECSS-Q-ST-80 (SW quality), and to ECSS-E-ST-70-41A (PUS standard).

• Dates (from – to)

February 2008 – November 2008

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

R&D Activities

• Occupation or position held

Head of Software Systems Specification Department

• Main activities and responsibilities

·         Definition of the requirements for the Automatic Generation of the On-Board PUS Services (GASP) Building Block. The activity consisted of:

o    Defining and modelling the invariant characteristics of the PUS services and of the mission-dependent characteristics of the PUS services.

o    Defining the basic set of PUS service subtypes.

o    Defining the generation rules to instantiate the assembly manager meta-model for a specific mission. The generation products at least include: software documentation, software architectural model, source code, TM/TC database.

·         Participation in the DASIA 2008 with the “PUS Services Software Building Block Automatic Generation For Space Mission” paper.

• Dates (from – to)

March 2005 – December 2006

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

Aircraft Navigation Sensor Unit Software - Project Technical Responsible

• Occupation or position held

Head of Software Systems Specification Department

• Main activities and responsibilities

Technical responsible for the specification, design, implementation, verification, validation and in-flight qualification of the application layer of the Navigation Sensor Unit (NSU) produced by Galileo Avionica.

During the project, he has coordinated a group of 8 persons. The application has been designed using the Real-time Unified Modelling Language (RT-UML) and has been developed in Ada 95 (20000 lines of code). The Real-time Operating System (RTOS) has been developed by Galileo Avionica for a PowerPC processor. The RTCA DO-178b has been used as applicable standard. The developed application software main characteristics are:

• Clock-driven scheduling (10 msec) for the execution of ”procedural” Ada tasks (hard real-time).
• Management of GPS, magnetometers, gyroscopes, air data sensors.
• Execution of algorithms for: initial leveling procedures, alignment procedures, air data computation, navigation data computation, attitude data computation.
• Execution of a 30-state Kalman filter for the integration of all the acquired/computed data.
• Execution of Power-on Built-in Test procedures (PBIT) and of Continuous BIT (CBIT).

·         Management of nominal and degraded NSU operative modes (automatically configured according to either the availability of the data sources or the reception of explicit configuration command sent by the Flight Control Computer).

• Dates (from – to)

March 2004 – March 2005

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

LEO Satellite On-Board Software

• Occupation or position held

Project Technical Manager

• Main activities and responsibilities

As consultant at Alenia Spazio, he was involved in the integration activities of the Integrated Control Subsystem (ICS) of the COSMO LEO satellites. The ICS is in charge of managing the satellite and the interfaces with the payload. In this context, he has been responsible for the following activities:

• Writing specifications for the 1553 bus utilisation by the on-board processors and the connected remote terminals: attitude and orbit control equipment (Sun sensors, reaction wheels, magnetometers, magnetotorquers, reaction control thrusters), GPS receivers, autonomous star tracker sensors, platform equipment (battery, solar arrays, thermal control subsystem), payload units, on-board memory mass subsystem.
• Writing specification for the ICS subsystem integration activities to verify the correctness of the overall behaviour and its performances.

• Dates (from – to)

February 2002 – March 2004

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

LEO Satellite On-Board Software

• Occupation or position held

Project Technical Manager

• Main activities and responsibilities

As consultant at Alenia Spazio, he has been involved in the integration activities of the Integrated Control Subsystem (ICS) of the Radarsat-2 LEO satellite. The ICS is in charge of managing the satellite and the interfaces with the payload. In this context, he has been responsible for the following activities:

• Writing specifications for the 1553 bus utilisation by the on-board processors and the connected remote terminals: attitude and orbit control equipment (Sun sensors, reaction wheels, magnetometers, magnetotorquers, reaction control thrusters), GPS receivers, autonomous star tracker sensors, platform equipment (battery, solar arrays, thermal control subsystem), payload units, on-board memory mass subsystem.
• Writing specification for the ICS subsystem integration activities to verify the correctness of the overall behaviour and its performances.

• Dates (from – to)

October 2001 – February 2002

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

COSMO-SkyMed Ground Segment

• Occupation or position held

Project Technical Manager

• Main activities and responsibilities

Participation in the Alenia Spazio system-level activities for the definition of the COSMO-SkyMed (Earth observation, remote sensing) mission requirements, with particular focus on Ground Segment operations related to satellites constellation evolution for the exploitation of the mission.

• Dates (from – to)

March 2001 – September 2001

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

COSMO-SkyMed Ground Segment

• Occupation or position held

Project Technical Manager

• Main activities and responsibilities

Participation in the Alenia Spazio system-level activities for the definition of the COSMO-SkyMed (Earth observation, remote sensing) ground segment requirements, with particular focus on the Satellite Control Center (SCC) and on the COSMO-SkyMed Mission Planning for the management of the SAR satellites constellation.

• Dates (from – to)

September 2000 – February 2001

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

SICRAL Ground Segment (Vigna di Valle, Rome)

• Occupation or position held

Project Technical Manager

• Main activities and responsibilities

Definition of the test procedures to be executed for the validation of the Centro di Gestione e Controllo of the SICRAL satellite under the Telespazio responsibility.

• Dates (from – to)

January 2000 – December 2000

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

SICRAL Ground Segment

• Occupation or position held

Project Technical Manager

• Main activities and responsibilities

Responsible for the development of a software application for controlling and monitoring the SICRAL satellite telecommunication payload, in the frame of the Centro Controllo Reti (CCR). The main functions of this software application are:

• Automatically determine the configuration parameters of the SICRAL payload equipment (switches, amplifiers, receivers, and so on) in order to actuate the satellite transponders necessary for the space segment configuration of the telecommunication links for services delivery to the final users.
• Automatically determine the new configuration of the SICRAL payload after the occurrence of equipment failures (for each equipment).
• Automatically determine the payload equipment parameters implementing a specified set of transponders, including the configuration of the switch matrices.
• Interaction with the Satellite Control Center in order to: (i) send commands for the payload configuration actuation, (ii) receive the payload current status, directly derived from the payload telemetry, (iii) receive the equipment failure notifications.

For this project, he had project management responsibilities and coordinated a team with a staffing profile with a peak of 8 persons. A total of 30.000 lines of C++ code where developed for the project.

• Dates (from – to)

1998 – 1999

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

SICRAL Ground Segment

• Occupation or position held

Project Technical Manager

• Main activities and responsibilities

Responsible for the design and development of the software of the Centro Controllo Reti (CCR) subsystem in the frame of the SICRAL project (developed for the Stato Maggiore della Difesa) and for the definition of the related external interfaces. The main purpose of the CCR is the coordination of the various external subsystems in order to provide the services required by the Stato Maggiore delle Difesa through the Centro Controllo Missione (CCM); moreover, it provides monitoring capabilities of all the SICRAL network resources.

The main software applications of the CCR subsystem are the following:

• The Controllo Reti Telecomunicazioni (CRT) software application, providing controlled access to the functions aimed at controlling the SICRAL telecommunication resources (SICRAL payload transponders, end-user EHF/SHF terminals, SCPC DAMA/PAMA network, TDMA DAMA networks, FDMA PAMA point-to-point links). These function are: preparation of the configuration procedures (by editing the composing configuration commands and by defining the timing constraints for their execution), control of the procedures execution (activation, suspension, continuation, termination, abort), supervision of the procedures execution (status of each single command).
• The Monitoring Reti Telecomunicazioni (MRT) software application, in charge of monitoring the SICRAL resources real-time status. It also allows geographical supervision of the end-users terminals and networks.
• The Supervisione Spettro Telecomunicazioni (SST) software application, in charge of supporting the CCR operator in defining the foreseen telecommunication spectrum and supervising any deviation from the expected behaviour.

The monitoring & control tasks are accomplished by the above listed integrated software applications which interface the following external subsystems: Satellite Control Center, TDMA DAMA Network Control Center, SCPC DAMA PAMA Network Controller, Communication Spectrum Monitoring.

For this project, he had project management responsibilities and coordinated a team with a staffing profile with a peak of 12 persons. A total of 70.000 lines of C++ code where developed for the project.

• Dates (from – to)

1996 – 1997

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

SICRAL Satellite On-Board Software

• Occupation or position held

Project Technical Manager

• Main activities and responsibilities

Responsible for the development of the Context component of the Platform Integrated Control Subsystem (PICS) Attitude and Orbit Control (AOC) application on-board software, in charge of interfacing the AOC control laws with their external environment. Currently, this software is flying on the SICRAL satellite launched on Feb 7, 2001. Its main characteristics are:

• Telecommands and telemetry processing.
• Configuration and actuation of the AOC subsystem hardware components (Sun sensors, infra-red Earth sensors, inertial measurement units, momentum wheels, reaction control thrusters, and liquid apogee engine).
• AOC subsystem configuration management (through all the nominal mission phases, both during the transfer orbit and the geosynchronous orbit).
• Autonomous recovery strategies for the AOC subsystem failures isolation and recovery.

Specifically, he was involved in the following life cycle phases:

• Software requirements definition (in Alenia Spazio - Rome).
• Architectural design (HOOD).
• Detailed design (HOOD).
• Software development (Ada).
• System test at the Alenia Spazio premises on the target hardware (1750a-based board).

For this project, he had project management responsibilities and coordinated a team with a staffing profile with a peak of 5 persons. A total of 10.000 lines of Ada code where developed for the project.

• Dates (from – to)

1994 – 1995

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

Air Traffic Control Application Software

• Occupation or position held

Software Engineer

• Main activities and responsibilities

Software design and testing of the Analyzer component in the frame of the Traffic Conflicts Alert System. The system to be designed is in charge of detecting short-term, minimum safe altitude, and dangerous area infringement conflicts. It is a real-time system initially implemented using Ada and C languages for the VAX/VMS environment and to be ported in the MARA (Multiprocessor Architecture for Real-time Applications) environment at the final system integration. In this context, he was involved in the following:

• Design and implementation of the TCA Analyzer external interface components.
• Design and implementation of the TCA Analyzer external interface simulator (TAIS).
• Design and implementation of the short-term conflicts detector (STCA function).
• Preparation and execution of the system-level tests.
• Porting on the target environment (MARA) and integration of the final product.

The Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) notation and the Ada Structured Graphs (ASGs) were used for the design activity (based on Buhr notation).

The above listed activities were performed in compliance with the DoD-STD-2167A standards.

• Dates (from – to)

1993

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

EGSE Test Sequence Processes Supervisor

• Occupation or position held

Software Engineer

• Main activities and responsibilities

In the frame of the Advanced Relay and Technology Mission (ARTEMIS) Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) Overall Check-Out Equipment (OCOE), he developed the Test Sequence Processes (TSP) Supervisor process, in charge of controlling the execution of the Test Language (TESLA) Test Sequences (TSs) used to check the satellite behaviour. The TSs execution in debug mode is also supported. All the software life cycle activities, starting from the user requirements assessment to the system-level test have been performed. The Data Flow Diagrams notation was used for the architectural design phase; the Structured Design was used during the detailed design phase.

The TSP Supervisor was developed using the VAX C language and the processes management VMS system services.

• Dates (from – to)

1991 – 1992

• Name and address of employer

Space Software Italia SpA (Taranto, Italy)

• Type of business or sector

ColumbusAttached Pressurised Module Simulator

• Occupation or position held

Software Engineer

• Main activities and responsibilities

Involved in the Columbus Attached Pressurized Module (APM) Program (phase C/D) with technical responsibility of the APM Simulation Models (SIMM) Assembly, in charge of simulating the behaviour of the APM subsystems to support the Integration, Verification and Qualification activities of the Columbus Flight Application Software (CFAS).

In the same context, he has had technical responsibility of the CFAS Level 2 (L2) Assembly, in charge of controlling the APM subsystems during all the operational phases. In particular, he dealt with the software controlling the Thermal Control Subsystem (TCS). Specifically, a CFAS L2 prototype has been developed on a DEC VAX hardware platform using the VAX Ada compiler. In order to support the prototype operations, a TCS simulator has been developed.

The two above mentioned activities have been performed in compliance with the European Space Agency (ESA) Software Engineering Standards and with the Columbus Software Development Standards.

Education and training

• Dates (from – to)

1988 – 1991

• Name and type of organisation providing education and training

School for Advanced Studies in Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SASIAM).

• Principal subjects/occupational

skills covered

During the two-year period he participated in the following projects:

• Reconstruction of Three-Dimensional Volumes and Simulation of the Thermal Behaviour of the Object (involving computational geometry and numerical solution of partial differential equations).
• Statistical Studies on Car Engines controlled by Electronic Units (involving univariate and multivariate regression analysis, principal components analysis).
• Implementation of Numerical Algorithms for the solution of ordinary and partial differential equations for the modelling of heat transfer problems, diffusion problems and wave propagation problems.

During the same period, he attended the following two-month courses:

·         Advanced Mathematical Modelling

·         Non-Linear Partial Differential Equations

·         Scientific Computing

·         Applied Probability and Statistics

·         Systems and Control

Moreover, he attended the following two-week courses:

·         Computer Vision - Pattern Recognition and Image Processing

·         Inverse Problems

·         Similarity Methods for Partial Differential Equations

·         Spatial Statistics

·         Computational Fluid Mechanics

·         Discrete Mathematics

·         Entropic Methods in Image Processing.

• Title of qualification awarded

Post-Degree Master

• Level in national classification

(if appropriate)

• Dates (from – to)

1987 – 1988

• Name and type of organisation providing education and training

Italian Army

• Principal subjects/occupational

skills covered

Militaty service

• Title of qualification awarded

Officer

• Dates (from – to)

1981 – 1986

• Name and type of organisation providing education and training

Universityof Pisa

• Principal subjects/occupational

skills covered

Computer Science

• Title of qualification awarded

Degree. Thesis: “The Safety in the Design of High Risk Systems.

• Level in national classification

(if appropriate)

Dottore

• Dates (from – to)

1976 – 1981

• Name and type of organisation providing education and training

Liceo Scientfico “Galileo Galilei” (secondary school).

• Title of qualification awarded

Diploma di Maturità

Mother tongue

Italian

English

• Reading skills

Excellent

• Writing skills

Excellent

• Verbal skills

Excellent

Organisational skills

and competences

Coordination and administration of people, projects and budgets; at work, in voluntary work (for example culture and sports) and at home, etc.

Currently, he is responsible of the “Avionics Software Department of the Italian Software Solutions Competence Center” in Thales Alenia Space Italy and coordinates an average number of 20 people working in L’Aquila, Turin and Rome.

Specific interest in Specifying and Designing Modular Spacecraft On-Board Software to Promote the Optimisation of the Production and Qualification Process. With specific reference to this topic, during the last years he has published the following papers:

-          S. Candia, F. Sgaramella, G. Mele “PUS Services Software Building Block Automatic Generation for Space Missions”, presented at DASIA 2008 (Palma De Majorca).

-          S. Candia, G. Lisio, G. Campolo, D. Pascucci “PRIMA Platform: A Scheme for Managing Equipment-dependent On-Board Functions and Impacts on the Avionics Software Production Process”, presented at DASIA 2010 (Budapest).

-          S. Candia, G. Lisio, G. Campolo, D. Pascucci “An Approach for On-Board Software Building Blocks Cooperation and Interfaces Definition”, presented at DASIA 2010 (Budapest).

-          S. Candia, G. Lisio, G. Campolo, D. Pascucci – “SSMNG Software Service Manager – A Scalable Building Blocks Architecture for PUS Services and FDIR Management”, presented at DASIA 2011 (Malta)

-          S. Candia, D. Pascucci – “Remarks on GMES Sentinel-1 Avionics Software Qualification”, presented at DASIA 2013 (Porto, Portugal)

-          S.Candia, P. Serri – “EucliDem – Demonstrator of the Euclid Mission File Management Service (FMS) & CCSDS File Delivery Protocol (CFDP)”, ESA ESTEC Mass Memory Day (The Netherlands, Noordwijk).

Technical skills

and competences

With computers, specific kinds of equipment, machinery, etc.

Standards: Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS), ESA-PSS-05, RTCA DO-178b, MISRA C.

Programming Languages: C, C++, Ada 95, Fortran.

Software Development Methodologies/Languages: Model-Driven Architecture (MDA), Unified Modeling Language (UML), Hierarchical Object-Oriented Design (HOOD).

Software Specification, Design and Development Environments: Artisan Studio, Rational Rose.

Artistic skills

and competences

Music, writing, design, etc.

Modelling of Architectural Models and Historical Models (with specific interest for railway subjects).

Table Tennis.