In the framework of INCOSE’s strategic initiative, the Systems Engineering Vision 2020, one of the main areas of focus is model-based systems engineering. In keeping with this emphasis, the European Southern Observatory (ESO; http://www.eso.org/ is
collaborating with the German Chapter of INCOSE https://www.gfse.de/. de/) in the form of an MBSE Challenge team. The team?s task is to demonstrate solutions to challenging problems using MBSE. The Active Phasing Experiment (APE; see Gonte et al. 2004), a European Union Framework Program 6 project, was chosen as the subject of the SE^2 Challenge Team (http://mbse.gfse.de/). Many technical products in the telescope domain show an increasing integration of mechanics with electronics, information processing, and also optics, and can therefore be rightly considered as optomechatronic systems.
This article presents the results of model-based systems engineering using the Systems Modeling Language (SysML; see Ogren
2000), drawing on experiences within the MBSE Challenge project and also the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT)
project.