A spacecraft network management system includes five functional entities, namely, attendant, accessor, collector, logic, and logic watchdog in a distributed architecture configured with both in-band and out-of-band data paths. Management data is structured so that it can travel over either in-band or out-of-band and be identified as such; user data travels over in-band paths. These five entities are distributed over the units of the design and then a modified set of otherwise standard elements are assigned to each entity depending on the nature of its function. These elements include managers, management agents, device agents, device management information base, and manager management information base that enable the entities to perform their respective functions.