With the launch of the first element of the International Space Station (ISS) in late 1997, scientists and engineers from around the world will have greater access to the space environment for research and commercial exploration. The complexity and flexibility of the International Space Station offers opportunities as well as challenges in planning on-orbit operations. In order to make effective use of limited resources (e.g. crew time, power, and data), while maximizing the results to the scientific, commercial, military and educational communities, the ISS operations planning community must balance many constraints and criteria. The four disciplines must be aware of these constraints as well as the planning process to plan and conduct their activities on-board ISS

Davis, Michael R.

Durham, H. Jeffrey

Fuller, Sean M.

English

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

The Space Congress® Proceedings 1997 (34th) Our Space Future - Uniting For Success Apr 29th, 2:00 PM Paper Session I-A - Planning for Operations On-Board the International Space Station Sean M. Fuller ISS Operations Planning Group NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, TX 77058 Michael R. Davis ISS Operations Planning Group NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, TX 77058 H. Jeffrey Durham ISS Operations Planning Group NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, TX 77058 Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.erau.edu/space-congress-proceedings Scholarly Commons Citation Fuller, Sean M.; Davis, Michael R.; and Durham, H. Jeffrey, "Paper Session I-A - Planning for Operations On-Board the International Space Station" (1997). The Space Congress® Proceedings. 6. https://commons.erau.edu/space-congress-proceedings/proceedings-1997-34th/april-29-1997/6 This Event is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences at Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Space Congress® Proceedings by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact commons@erau.edu. Planning for Operations On-Boardthe International Space Station                  Sean M. Fuller                  Michael R. Davis     ISS Operations Planning Group                    ISS Operations Planning GroupNASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center                           NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center              Houston, TX  77058                Houston, TX  77058H. Jeffrey DurhamISS Operations Planning GroupNASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space CenterHouston, TX  77058ABSTRACTWith the launch of the first element of the International Space Station (ISS) in late 1997, scientistsand engineers from around the world will have greater access to the space environment for re-search and commercial exploration.  The complexity and flexibility of the International Space Sta-tion offers opportunities as well as challenges in planning on-orbit operations.  In order to makeeffective use of limited resources (e.g. crew time, power, and data), while maximizing the results tothe scientific, commercial, military and educational communities, the ISS operations planning com-munity must balance many constraints and criteria.  The four disciplines must be aware of theseconstraints as well as the planning process to plan and conduct their activities on-board ISS.INTRODUCTIONPlanning for operations on-board the International Space Station (ISS) is a highly complex pro-cess designed to make effective use of limited resources within strict constraints.  The planningprocess for ISS will involve scheduling a wide variety of objectives and procedures against theselimited resources.  These limited resources include, but are not limited to: power, communicationscoverage, crew, and microgravity conditions.ISS operations planning also address intangibles, such as international cooperation.  The natureof ISS involves operations across international boundaries.  The crews, regardless of nationality,will be working in all segments of ISS.  Also, each segment has its own unique capabilities andconstraints.  Areas such as power available and microgravity conditions will vary both in locationon ISS as well as in time.  Obviously, these are areas that the planners must take into consider-ation and will affect operations such as experiments on-board ISS.Preliminary work to help all parties understand operations for ISS has begun with Phase 1 of theISS Program.  In the Phase 1 program, both US and Russian personnel and vehicles are workingtogether to plan and execute both Space Shuttle-Mir joint operations, and to conduct US-spon-sored experiments in the Mir environment.  Planners are taking lessons learned from the Phase Imissions and incorporating these into Groundrules and Constraints to guide future operations onISS.Unlike current Shuttle planning, which includes generating detailed activity schedules a month inadvance of the flight, ISS planning delays detailed scheduling as late as possible.  The objective isto minimize, if not eliminate, the multitude of replanning changes that characterize Shuttle flights.Instead, the first time a detailed ISS timeline will be generated is one week before execution.  Thisis referred to as “Just in Time Planning.”This paper outlines the predicted ISS planning and operations environment as well as summa-rizes planning processes and procedures.NASA PLANNING APPROACHJust In Time PlanningThe  International Space Station (ISS) plan development in the execution phase will provide theintermediate and short range plans for conducting Station systems and utilization operations.  Withinthe context of a planning team composed of representatives of all International Partners, ISSplanning is segmented based on the characterization of requirements as “Systems” and “Utiliza-tion”.  “Systems Planning” refers to the planning that must be performed to ensure that the Stationremains operational and provides a safe and supportive environment for science and commercialoperations activities.  (Assembly and Maintenance activities)  “Utilization Planning” refers to theplanning that must be performed to accomplish the goals and objectives of science and commer-cial operations activities.  It is important to note that systems requirements generally will be plannedbefore utilization requirements in order to provide a feasible foundation for science and commer-cial objectives.The On-Orbit Operations Summary (OOS) will provide the intermediate range planning of systemsand utilization operations for an entire increment.  (An increment is defined as the On-orbit  stay ofone Station crew and may be as long as six months.)  The OOS identifies the activities to beperformed during each day of planned Station operations, but provides no detail as to exact timeof execution.  The OOS is developed based on the needs of maintaining the Station operationscapability while fulfilling the objectives of individual utilization activities.  Using the OOS as thestarting point, the Short Term Plan (STP) will define in detail the planned systems and payloadoperations to occur during one week of the continuous Station operations capability.  The STP isthe blueprint for daily activities of all ISS participants.  These two plans will be developed in anintegrated manner by the international participants in the planning process.Weekly Planning ProcessWeekly planning is the process through which the OOS and STP are developed to support theonboard execution of systems and utilization activities.  The weekly planning process consist offourteen steps:1. Determine the current state of ISS resource and operations capabilities and constraints.  Thesecapabilities and constraints are based on the current Station configuration.  Systems and equip-ment represent the resources against which planning must be performed.2. Identify the International Partner’s specific operation guidelines and constraints for the weekbeing planned.  Based on the information, ISS planners perform a specific allocation of availableresources to the International Partners (Russian Space Agency, National Space DevelopmentAgency of Japan, and European Space Agency) through the distribution of “resource envelopes.”Each Partner’s allocation is based on overall program agreements about how the ISS capabilitieswill be exploited during a specific increment.  Resource envelopes also to: 1) identify the Partner’sapproach to ensuring  their program agreements and commitments are properly reflected in thedistribution of resource envelopes, and 2) ensure utilization goals and objectives of Partner spon-sored payloads within each of the Station segments are properly represented.3. Conduct the Weekly Planning Conference to ensure critical Station-wide activity requirementsare coordinated across the systems and utilization planning functions of the entire Station and thatutilization activity requirements are coordinated across the International Partners.  The inputsduring the conference consist of current Station capabilities and constraints, systems and utiliza-tion operations requirements, Partner planning guidelines and constraints, the current STP andOOS, change requests, and Partner issues and concerns.  The output of the Weekly PlanningConference is the agreed set of specific system and utilization operations for the planning week.4. Define the system operations activities for those basic activities required to operate Station.This activity set is called Basic Station.  By definition, these activities do not use crew time as aresource but may use other resources such as power, thermal, and data.5. Develop a plan of systems operations required to maintain a safe and functional Station opera-tions capability.  This plan specifies the timing and frequency of systems operations to occur dur-ing the next week of planned Station operations.6. Determine the distribution of the available resources to each of the International Partnersresponsible for a Station segment.  This step ensures that the utilization requirements for all pay-loads within an International Partner’s segment are accommodated.7. Define the resources that are unique to a particular segment.  Through the evaluation of re-sources that are unique to a Station’s segment, resource capabilities and constraints of segmentsystems and equipment are available in the form required for planning and scheduling.8. Identify the resource, timing, and relationship constraints necessary to define the time depen-dent resource envelopes available to individual Users/User Operations Facilities (UOFs).  TheUsers/UOFs develop the utilization requirements of one or more Users in a form that can be usedto support the distribution of resource envelopes and the planning and scheduling of utilizationactivities.9. Determine the timing and magnitude of resources within which individual activities of a givenUser or UOF must be scheduled.  This step also defines the planned configurations andreconfigurations of segment unique systems required to support the utilization activities within asegment.10. Determine the information necessary to build the products (STP) required to implement andexecute utilization activities onboard the Station while ensuring that the scheduled activities for theupcoming week are consistent with resource envelopes.11. Develop or update execution details for the system activities contained on the system opera-tion plan.  This step includes the products which define the results of systems operations planningand the inputs required to support the development, management, and control of operations acrossthe Station.  (Station-wide Product Inputs)12. Collect the detailed plans and products necessary to support the unique and independentoperations of the various Station segments.  This step also provides the information necessary toensure that scheduled segment utilization operations are consistent with resource envelopes (Seg-ment Utilization Operations Plans).  The resulting plans and products provide an integrated set ofdata representing all operations to be performed within a segment for both the upcoming weekand for the remainder of the increment.13. Integrate the plan of scheduled systems operations for the week and segment-specific utiliza-tion operations planning data necessary to generate the products required to support the opera-tions across the Station.  The resulting plans and products are used by the crew, automatedsystems, and ground controllers to implement, manage, and control onboard operations of theentire Station.  The primary products resulting from the implementation of this step includes theSTP, OSTP (Onboard Short Term Plan), an updated integrated systems OOS, and segment-spe-cific execution products.14. Perform a final check for proper integration of systems and utilization operations plans.   Thisvalidation process involves reviewing plans to ensure that the plans adhere to the defined re-source availability and International Partner planning guidelines and constraints.15. Ensure that program agreements are attained and that the science goals and objectives of therespective Users are being satisfied.  This is accomplished through the evaluation of the resultingintermediate and short range plans for concurrence with Partner agreements and program com-mitments, while taking into account the results from the previous planning cycles.PAYLOAD OPERATIONPayload operations on-board ISS will be different from operations on the Space Shuttle.  Much ofthe payload operations on ISS will be automated.  The automated operations will be run andmaintained by on-board software located in the Payload MDM (Mulitplexer/Demultiplexer).  Crewhours available for payload operations will be limited to approximately 21 percent of the total crewwork week during steady state operations (currently estimated at 9.25 hours per week for eachcrew member).Limited communications coverage available to ISS will introduce some new operating techniques.The crew will have more personal time for operations and will do much of the problem solvingthemselves.  Limited communications coverage means that there will not always be someone atthe other end of the radio link to answer the crew’s questions.  Thus, the crew will need to have agood understanding of experiment being performed and have the leeway to deviate from thewritten procedures when necessary.Figure O-1 Weekly Planning FlowDetermine Station Resource and Operations Capabilities and ConstraintsO.2.1Conduct Weekly Planning ConferenceO.2.3Define International Partner Planning Guidelines and ConstraintsO.2.2Determine Element Resource Capabilities and ConstraintsO.2.7Collect/Update User Planning RequirementsO.2.8Determine Basic Station Operations O.2.4Develop Schedule of Systems Activities and Identify Payload Resource EnvelopeO.2.5Distribute Payload Resource Envelopes to ElementsO.2.6Perform Planning and Distribute PayloadResource Envelopes to UsersO.2.9Perform Detailed  Payload Planning and Develop Execution DetailsO.2.10Develop and Review Systems  DetailsO.2.11Integrate Station Wide Plans and ProductsO.2.13Develop Element Payload Operations Products and Inputs to the Short Term PlanO.2.12Review and Approve Station Wide PlansO.2.14Evaluate Plans for Concurrence with Partner AgreementsO.2.15Research on ISS has been categorized as:1. Life Sciences2. Material Sciences3. Fluid/Combustion Sciences4. Space Sciences5. Earth Sciences6. Commercial/TechnologyThe crew will be skills trained in these areas.  This is a change from current payloads training forthe Space Shuttle crews which involves task training.  Due to the long duration of the ISS flights,the crew will be more effective if they are trained for a type of operations rather than proceduretrained for a specific procedure or task.  It is felt that with the long duration missions, tasks learnedin task training will be lost as time increases, however, if the crew is skills trained, they will retainthe necessary skills and can develop and review procedures on-orbit just prior to performing thespecific task.Payload operations will be conducted throughout ISS requiring the crew to be trained in differentoperating environments.  At assembly complete, internal science operations will be occurring inthe US Lab, ESA’s Advanced Pressurized Module, the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), aswell as in the Russian research modules.  There will also be exposed research facilities locatedoutside the JEM and along the truss structure.Payload operations on ISS will be different from operations on the Space Shuttle and thus willrequire a new approach to the planning process.  The extended orbital operations time offered byISS will open a wide variety of new opportunities previously unavailable.  But this also means therewill be many new challenges to be met for science operations on ISS.CONCLUSIONOperations on the International Space Station will present many challenges to the operationsplanning community.  NASA has outlined its approach to meet these challenges and make opera-tions on ISS as effective as possible.  Good communications between the scientific communityand the planning community will be required to enable operations on ISS to allow many advance-ments in the scientific world.

Paper Session I-A - Planning for Operations On-Board the International Space Station

https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1420&amp;context=space-congress-proceedings

Paper Session I-A - Planning for Operations On-Board the International Space Station

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University