The GAFE Methodology describes a methodology for the design, development and validation of the fault management concept for the AOCS/GNC of a spacecraft. It is focused on early mission phases (preliminary design) and includes a high level overview of the process tasks and detailed procedures for the most important steps.

The major points covered are the analysis of the fault management requirements, the extension of the nominal AOCS/GNC equipment set in order to make it compliant to the failure tolerance and availability requirements, and the definition of the on-board failure detection, isolation and recovery concept. At many points the tasks are supported by lists of items to be checked or considered, e.g. a list of best practice FDIR requirements and feared events, a condensed list of in-orbit failures of AOCS/GNC equipment, and typical parameters to be made available to the on-board monitoring. The methodology presented in this document is suitable for the class of single failure tolerant spacecraft, which is the most common class for unmanned missions. The methodology is closely linked to the other GAFE Framework items, which were developed side-by-side with the methodology. Several analysis steps and concepts discussed in this document are reflected in tools and concepts of the framework.

The methodology is in more detailed described in the GAFE Methodology document.