Study on orbital propagators: constellation analysis with NASA 42 and MATLAB/SIMULINK

Desde el comienzo de la era espacial, la filosofía de diseño de satélites estuvo dominada por diseños conservadores construidos con componentes altamente duraderos para soportar condiciones ambientales extremas. Durante las últimas dos décadas, la aparición de los CubeSats ha cambiado esta filosofía permitiendo todo un mundo de nuevas posibilidades. El despliegue de grandes constelaciones de CubeSats en órbita terrestre baja (LEO, en inglés) revolucionará el sector espacial al permitir ciclos de innovación más rápidos y económicos. Sin embargo, la confiabilidad de los CubeSats todavía se considera un obstáculo debido a las considerables tasas de fallo entre universidades y empresas, generalmente atribuidas a casos de pérdida completa de misión tras la eyección del desplegador orbital y al fallo de los subsistemas. Esta tesis se desarrolla en el marco del proyecto de investigación PLATHON, que pretende desarrollar una plataforma de emulación Hardware-in-the-loop para constelaciones de nanosatélites con comunicación óptica entre satélites y enlaces tierra-satélite. Un aspecto crucial de este proyecto es tener un propagador orbital suficientemente preciso con control de maniobras y representación gráfica en tiempo real. Los programas de propagadores disponibles se han analizado para seleccionar el sistema OpenSatKit de la NASA, una plataforma multifacética con un propagador incorporado conocido como 42. El propósito de esta disertación es analizar la viabilidad de implementación del programa para la creación de un banco de pruebas de constelaciones en comparación con un propagador previo desarrollado en MATLAB/Simulink. La documentación inicial es un enfoque de exploración para examinar las capacidades del 42 en distintos escenarios con objeto de adaptar el sistema PLATHON al funcionamiento interno y las limitaciones del programa. Las modificaciones y simulaciones del programa allanan el camino para el futuro desarrollo de la red interconectada PLATHON; específicamente, las comunicaciones entre procesos se han probado para imitar las entradas de los sistemas de control de actitud de las naves espaciales a través de interfaces de comunicación bidireccionales.Since the beginning of the space age, satellite design philosophy was dominated by conservative designs built with highly reliable components to endure extreme environmental conditions. During the last two decades, the dawn of the CubeSats has changed this philosophy enabling a whole world of new possibilities. The deployment of monumental CubeSat constellations in low Earth orbit is set to revolutionise the space sector by enabling faster and economical innovation cycles. However, CubeSat reliability is still considered an obstacle due to the sizeable fail rates among universities and companies, generally attributed to the dead-on-arrival cases and subsystem malfunctions. This thesis is developed in the framework of the PLATHON research project that intends to develop a Hardware-in-the-loop emulation platform for nanosatellite constellations with optical inter-satellite communication and ground-to-satellite links. A crucial aspect of this project is to have a sufficiently precise orbital propagator with real-time manoeuvring control and graphical representation. The available propagator programmes are analysed to select NASA’s OpenSatKit, a multi-facet platform with an inbuilt propagator known as 42. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyse the implementation feasibility of the programme for the creation of a constellation testing bench compared to previously selfdeveloped propagators based on MATLAB/Simulink. The initial documentation is a scouting approach to examine 42’s capabilities under distinct scenarios to adapt the PLATHON system to the programme’s inner workings and constraints. The programme modifications and simulations pave the way for the future development of the interconnected PLATHON network; specifically, the inter-process communication capabilities have been tested to imitate the inputs of spacecraft attitude control systems through bidirectional socket interfaces

Space station data system analysis/architecture study. Task 2: Options development, DR-5. Volume 2: Design options

The primary objective of Task 2 is the development of an information base that will support the conduct of trade studies and provide sufficient data to make key design/programmatic decisions. This includes: (1) the establishment of option categories that are most likely to influence Space Station Data System (SSDS) definition; (2) the identification of preferred options in each category; and (3) the characterization of these options with respect to performance attributes, constraints, cost and risk. This volume contains the options development for the design category. This category comprises alternative structures, configurations and techniques that can be used to develop designs that are responsive to the SSDS requirements. The specific areas discussed are software, including data base management and distributed operating systems; system architecture, including fault tolerance and system growth/automation/autonomy and system interfaces; time management; and system security/privacy. Also discussed are space communications and local area networking

HSP-Wrap: The Design and Evaluation of Reusable Parallelism for a Subclass of Data-Intensive Applications

There is an increasing gap between the rate at which data is generated by scientific and non-scientific fields and the rate at which data can be processed by available computing resources. In this paper, we introduce the fields of Bioinformatics and Cheminformatics; two fields where big data has become a problem due to continuing advances in the technologies that drives these fields: such as gene sequencing and small ligand exploration. We introduce high performance computing as a means to process this growing base of data in order to facilitate knowledge discovery. We enumerate goals of the project including reusability, efficiency, reliability, and scalability. We then describe the implementation of a software scheduler which aims to improve input and output performance of a targeted collection of informatics tools, as well as the profiling and optimization needed to tune the software. We evaluate the performance of the software with a scalability study of the Bioinformatics tools BLAST, HMMER, and MUSCLE; as well as the Cheminformatics tool DOCK6

NASA space station automation: AI-based technology review

Research and Development projects in automation for the Space Station are discussed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based automation technologies are planned to enhance crew safety through reduced need for EVA, increase crew productivity through the reduction of routine operations, increase space station autonomy, and augment space station capability through the use of teleoperation and robotics. AI technology will also be developed for the servicing of satellites at the Space Station, system monitoring and diagnosis, space manufacturing, and the assembly of large space structures