COMBINATORIAL FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH DESIGNING DISTRIBUTED SPACECRAFT MISSIONS (DSMS) DEMAND NEW METHODS AND TOOLS TO SUPPORT PRE-PHASE A TRADE SPACE STUDIES. THIS PROJECT INVESTIGATES THE ROLE OF A KNOWLEDGE BASE (KB) AS NEW COMPONENT IN THE TRADE SPACE ANALYSIS TOOL FOR CONSTELLATIONS (TAT-C) CURRENTLY UNDER DEVELOPMENT. THE KB IS A CENTRALIZED STORE OF HUMAN- AND MACHINE-READABLE DATA LOOSELY COUPLED WITH TAT-C MODULES AND OTHER INTERFACES. THE OBJECTIVES OF THIS PROJECT ARE TO IDENTIFY CORE KB FUNCTIONALITY TO SUPPORT DSM TRADE SPACE ANALYSIS AND DEMONSTRATE THIS FUNCTIONALITY USING SOFTWARE INTERFACES DEVELOPED FOR TAT-C TO STORE AND RETRIEVE DATA DURING MISSION MODELING ACTIVITIES. OTHER EFFORTS TO GATHER PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INFORMATION ON EXISTING AND PROPOSED EARTH SCIENCE MISSIONS WILL SUPPORT TAT-C VALIDATION AND ENABLE RAPID GENERATION OF NEW CONCEPTS BY COMPOSING EXISTING INSTRUMENTS SPACECRAFT BUSSES AND MISSION SCENARIOS. THIS PROJECT WILL BUILD ON PRELIMINARY WORK TO DEVELOP A PROTOTYPE KB USING A NODE.JS/EXPRESS/MONGOOSE TECHNOLOGY STACK WITH A MONGODB DATABASE.