This paper presents a metadata-driven approach based on aspect-oriented requirements analysis. This approach has been defined in cooperation with the European Space Agency in the context of the “Aspect Specification for the Space Domain” (ASSD) project. ASSD aims at assessing the applicability and usefulness of aspect-orientation for the space domain (ground segment software projects in particular), focusing on the early stages of the software development life cycle. This paper describes a rigorous representation of requirements analysis concepts, refines a method for handling early aspects, and proposes a client/server architecture based on a metadata repository. KEY WORDS XML, Metadata Repository, Aspect-Oriented Software Development, Requirements Analysis, Early Aspects.