Conceptual Design and Analysis of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for Command and Control of Space Assets

The mission-unique model that has dominated the DoD satellite Command and Control community is costly and inefficient. It requires repeatedly “reinventing” established common C2 components for each program, unnecessarily inflating budgets and delivery schedules. The effective utilization of standards is scarce, and proprietary, non-open solutions are commonplace. IT professionals have trumpeted Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) as the solution to large enterprise situations where multiple, functionally redundant but non-compatible information systems create large recurring development, test, maintenance, and tech refresh costs. This thesis describes the current state of Service Oriented Architectures as related to satellite operations and presents a functional analysis used to classify a set of generic C2 services. By assessing the candidate services’ suitability through a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis, several C2 functionalities are shown to be more ready than others to be presented as services in the short term. Lastly, key enablers are identified, pinpointing the necessary steps for a full and complete transition from the paradigm of costly mission-unique implementations to the common, interoperable, and reusable space C2 SOA called for by DoD senior leaders

Architecture and Information Requirements to Assess and Predict Flight Safety Risks During Highly Autonomous Urban Flight Operations

As aviation adopts new and increasingly complex operational paradigms, vehicle types, and technologies to broaden airspace capability and efficiency, maintaining a safe system will require recognition and timely mitigation of new safety issues as they emerge and before significant consequences occur. A shift toward a more predictive risk mitigation capability becomes critical to meet this challenge. In-time safety assurance comprises monitoring, assessment, and mitigation functions that proactively reduce risk in complex operational environments where the interplay of hazards may not be known (and therefore not accounted for) during design. These functions can also help to understand and predict emergent effects caused by the increased use of automation or autonomous functions that may exhibit unexpected non-deterministic behaviors. The envisioned monitoring and assessment functions can look for precursors, anomalies, and trends (PATs) by applying model-based and data-driven methods. Outputs would then drive downstream mitigation(s) if needed to reduce risk. These mitigations may be accomplished using traditional design revision processes or via operational (and sometimes automated) mechanisms. The latter refers to the in-time aspect of the system concept. This report comprises architecture and information requirements and considerations toward enabling such a capability within the domain of low altitude highly autonomous urban flight operations. This domain may span, for example, public-use surveillance missions flown by small unmanned aircraft (e.g., infrastructure inspection, facility management, emergency response, law enforcement, and/or security) to transportation missions flown by larger aircraft that may carry passengers or deliver products. Caveat: Any stated requirements in this report should be considered initial requirements that are intended to drive research and development (R&D). These initial requirements are likely to evolve based on R&D findings, refinement of operational concepts, industry advances, and new industry or regulatory policies or standards related to safety assurance

Design and Testing of Space Telemetry SCA Waveform

A Software Communications Architecture (SCA) Waveform for space telemetry is being developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). The space telemetry waveform is implemented in a laboratory testbed consisting of general purpose processors, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and digital-to-analog converters (DACs). The radio hardware is integrated with an SCA Core Framework and other software development tools. The waveform design is described from both the bottom-up signal processing and top-down software component perspectives. Simulations and model-based design techniques used for signal processing subsystems are presented. Testing with legacy hardware-based modems verifies proper design implementation and dynamic waveform operations. The waveform development is part of an effort by NASA to define an open architecture for space based reconfigurable transceivers. Use of the SCA as a reference has increased understanding of software defined radio architectures. However, since space requirements put a premium on size, mass, and power, the SCA may be impractical for today s space ready technology. Specific requirements for an SCA waveform and other lessons learned from this development are discussed

Linking and Combining Distributed Operations Facilities using NASA's "GMSEC" Systems Architectures

NASA's Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) ground system architecture has been in development since late 2001, has successfully supported eight orbiting satellites and is being applied to many of NASA's future missions. GMSEC can be considered an event-driven service-oriented architecture built around a publish/subscribe message bus middleware. This paper briefly discusses the GMSEC technical approaches which have led to significant cost savings and risk reduction for NASA missions operated at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The paper then focuses on the development and operational impacts of extending the architecture across multiple mission operations facilities

Innovative Solutions for Navigation and Mission Management of Unmanned Aircraft Systems

The last decades have witnessed a significant increase in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) of all shapes and sizes. UAS are finding many new applications in supporting several human activities, offering solutions to many dirty, dull, and dangerous missions, carried out by military and civilian users. However, limited access to the airspace is the principal barrier to the realization of the full potential that can be derived from UAS capabilities. The aim of this thesis is to support the safe integration of UAS operations, taking into account both the user's requirements and flight regulations. The main technical and operational issues, considered among the principal inhibitors to the integration and wide-spread acceptance of UAS, are identified and two solutions for safe UAS operations are proposed: A. Improving navigation performance of UAS by exploiting low-cost sensors. To enhance the performance of the low-cost and light-weight integrated navigation system based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) inertial sensors, an efficient calibration method for MEMS inertial sensors is required. Two solutions are proposed: 1) The innovative Thermal Compensated Zero Velocity Update (TCZUPT) filter, which embeds the compensation of thermal effect on bias in the filter itself and uses Back-Propagation Neural Networks to build the calibration function. Experimental results show that the TCZUPT filter is faster than the traditional ZUPT filter in mapping significant bias variations and presents better performance in the overall testing period. Moreover, no calibration pre-processing stage is required to keep measurement drift under control, improving the accuracy, reliability, and maintainability of the processing software; 2) A redundant configuration of consumer grade inertial sensors to obtain a self-calibration of typical inertial sensors biases. The result is a significant reduction of uncertainty in attitude determination. In conclusion, both methods improve dead-reckoning performance for handling intermittent GNSS coverage. B. Proposing novel solutions for mission management to support the Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) system in monitoring and coordinating the operations of a large number of UAS. Two solutions are proposed: 1) A trajectory prediction tool for small UAS, based on Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ) Neural Networks. By exploiting flight data collected when the UAS executes a pre-assigned flight path, the tool is able to predict the time taken to fly generic trajectory elements. Moreover, being self-adaptive in constructing a mathematical model, LVQ Neural Networks allow creating different models for the different UAS types in several environmental conditions; 2) A software tool aimed at supporting standardized procedures for decision-making process to identify UAS/payload configurations suitable for any type of mission that can be authorized standing flight regulations. The proposed methods improve the management and safe operation of large-scale UAS missions, speeding up the flight authorization process by the UTM system and supporting the increasing level of autonomy in UAS operations

Mission Information and Test Systems Summary of Accomplishments, 2011

This annual report covers the activities of the NASA DRFC Mission Information and Test Systems, which includes the Western Aeronautical Test Range, the Simulation Engineering Branch, the Information Services and the Dryden Technical Laboratory (Flight Loads Lab). This report contains highlights, current projects and various awards achieved during in 201

Design and Implementation of Software Solutions for Satellite Ground Segment, with Application to the ESEO Mission

The work presented in this thesis focuses on the design and implementation of software solutions for the ground segment of satellite missions, with application to the ESEO mission. The ESEO project is currently in Phase D after successfully passing the preliminary and critical design reviews and the launch is foreseen in 2017. Starting from our experience with ALMASat-1 mission, we greatly improved the ground systems for a more complex mission like ESEO. One of the most important improvement is the introduction of a Software Defined Radio with a dedicated software application acting as a transceiver capable of communicating with the on-board transceiver at the registered frequencies and using the defined communication protocol and modulation scheme. It also displays and registers the acquired signal for post-processing tasks. The spacecraft monitoring and control system and the telemetry data visualisation and display tool have been designed keeping in mind the high number of subsystems and payloads and the possibility to re-use the same software for future missions with the minimum effort. The introduction of a connection to a database is essential considering the high number of spacecraft and mission data. This thesis also presents the software solutions designed and implemented for ground stations used by EUMETSAT to operate LEO and GEO weather satellites. The Ground Station Analysis and Reporting tool was developed to allow engineers checking through periodic reports the performance of two ground stations located in Svalbard. The Satellite Passes and Conflicts Engine supports now the schedule of Metop and NOAA satellite passes over Svalbard ground station and it can be used to compute passes and resolve conflicts of multiple satellites over multiple ground stations based on the propagation of the TLEs. Finally, a ground station monitoring and control simulator has been implemented and fully tested for the MTG programme

Mission Information and Test Systems Summary of Accomplishments, 2012-2013

This annual report covers the activities of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's Mission Information and Test Systems directorate, which include the Western Aeronautical Test Range (Range Engineering and Range Operations), the Simulation Engineering Branch, and Information Services. This report contains highlights, current projects, and various awards achieved throughout 2012 and 2013

Field Reporting Tool Experience in Digne with SDIS 04

This document will describe the use of the Field Reporting Tool platform during a demonstration of technologies applied to the crisis management held in Digne by SDIS 04 on June, 22nd 2017. The tool was applied to a search and rescue simulation and integrated with the other technologies demonstrated in Digne by SDIS 04.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen