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NASA’s Safety, Reliability, and Mission Assurance Digital Future

The evolution from “document-centric” to “data-centric” and “model-centric” information leveraging structured data and model-based approaches is at the heart of digital engineering transformational efforts underway across industry and government. It is these approaches that pave the way for data lakes, Authoritative Sources of Truth (ASOTs), and systems- of-systems interoperability and the corresponding transformational benefits thereof. Such benefits include increased data availability, data access equity, data traceability, real-time analytics, batch analytics, and (most importantly) acceleration of the time-to-value and time-to-insights associated with engineering products and analyses. The longer-term benefits of reusability, customization and traceability are even more promising. For Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA), and Mission Success (SMS) activities; realization of such benefits is essential to provide engineers and analysts alike vital information when needed to support critical decision making throughout the entire life cycle. The SMA community often operate in parallel with engineering activities, for which information exchange with relevant context is paramount. Far too often, such information lags key decision points and/or is absent of the robust, integrated, knowledge needed, given inherent barriers associated with traditional document-centric means to data sharing, analysis, and reporting. This paper provides an overview of how NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) is evolving its policies, standards, guidance, and training to transform to eliminate such barriers, thus realizing the benefits emerging in this new digital era. A roadmap for achieving this digital future is presented along with key building blocks involving use and implementation of concepts such as: Objectives-Hierarchies, Objective-Driven Requirements, Accepted Standards, Safety and Assurance Cases, data digitization (i.e., ontologies, structured data, and model-centric data), FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, & Reusable) and/or FAIRUST (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable, Understandable, Secure, and Trusted) principles [1]. This paper also describes how OSMA, leveraging the Agency’s overall commitment to Digital Transformation (DT), is using the power of Policy, “Digital” Domain representation, Product Evolution, and Community Outreach and Engagement as part of a strategic vision and roadmap to evolve and transform its SMA organizations to become better able to serve its stakeholders and customers. Future publications will elaborate on these building blocks and deeper concepts.

Authoritative Source of Truth (ASOT),↗

Land and Atmosphere Near-Real-Time Capability for Earth Observing System

The past decade has seen a rapid increase in availability and usage of near-real-time data from satellite sensors. The EOSDIS (Earth Observing System Data and Information System) was not originally designed to provide data with sufficiently low latency to satisfy the requirements for near-real-time users. The EOS (Earth Observing System) instruments aboard the Terra, Aqua and Aura satellites make global measurements daily, which are processed into higher-level 'standard' products within 8-40 hours of observation and then made available to users, primarily earth science researchers. However, applications users, operational agencies, and even researchers desire EOS products in near-real-time to support research and applications, including numerical weather and climate prediction and forecasting, monitoring of natural hazards, ecological/invasive species, agriculture, air quality, disaster relief and homeland security. These users often need data much sooner than routine science processing allows, usually within 3 hours, and are willing to trade science product quality for timely access. While Direct Broadcast provides more timely access to data, it does not provide global coverage. In 2002, a joint initiative between NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and the DOD (Department of Defense) was undertaken to provide data from EOS instruments in near-real-time. The NRTPE (Near Real Time Processing Effort) provided products within 3 hours of observation on a best-effort basis. As the popularity of these near-real-time products and applications grew, multiple near-real-time systems began to spring up such as the Rapid Response System. In recognizing the dependence of customers on this data and the need for highly reliable and timely data access, NASA's Earth Science Division sponsored the Earth Science Data and Information System Project (ESDIS)-led development of a new near-real-time system called LANCE (Land, Atmosphere Near-Real-Time Capability for EOS) in 2009. LANCE consists of special processing elements, co-located with selected EOSDIS data centers and processing facilities. A primary goal of LANCE is to bring multiple near-real-time systems under one umbrella, offering commonality in data access, quality control, and latency. LANCE now processes and distributes data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer Earth Observing System (AMSR-E), Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) instruments within 3 hours of satellite observation. The Rapid Response System and the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) capabilities will be incorporated into LANCE in 2011. LANCE maintains a central website to facilitate easy access to data and user services. LANCE products are extensively tested and compared with science products before being made available to users. Each element also plans to implement redundant network, power and server infrastructure to ensure high availability of data and services. Through the user registration system, users are informed of any data outages and when new products or services will be available for access. Building on a significant investment by NASA in developing science algorithms and products, LANCE creates products that have a demonstrated utility for applications requiring near-real-time data. From lower level data products such as calibrated geolocated radiances to higher-level products such as sea ice extent, snow cover, and cloud cover, users have integrated LANCE data into forecast models and decision support systems. The table above shows the current near-real-time product categories by instrument. The ESDIS Project continues to improve the LANCE system and use the experience gained through practice to seek adjustments to improve the quality and performance of the system. For example, anGC-compliant Web Map Service (WMS) will be added shortly that will allow users to download geo-referenced MODIS images for arbitrary bounding boxes. Further, an OGC-compliant Web Coverage Service (WCS) will be added later this year that will expedite user access to arbitrary data subsets or re-formatted products. AIRS images are now served through WMS and available in multiple formats (PNG, GeoTIFF, KMZ). NASA has established a LANCE User Working Group to steer the development of the system and create a forum for sharing ideas and experiences that are expected to further improve the LANCE capabilities. The LANCE system has proved a success by satisfying the growing needs of the applications and operational communities for land and atmosphere data in near-real-time. NASA's Earth Sciences Division was able to leverage existing science research capabilities to provide the near-real-time community with products and imagery that support monitoring of disasters in a timely manner.

Murphy, Kevin J.↗

The Aviation System Analysis Capability Air Carrier Cost-Benefit Model

To meet its objective of assisting the U.S. aviation industry with the technological challenges of the future, NASA must identify research areas that have the greatest potential for improving the operation of the air transportation system. Therefore, NASA is developing the ability to evaluate the potential impact of various advanced technologies. By thoroughly understanding the economic impact of advanced aviation technologies and by evaluating how the new technologies will be used in the integrated aviation system, NASA aims to balance its aeronautical research program and help speed the introduction of high-leverage technologies. To meet these objectives, NASA is building the Aviation System Analysis Capability (ASAC). NASA envisions ASAC primarily as a process for understanding and evaluating the impact of advanced aviation technologies on the U.S. economy. ASAC consists of a diverse collection of models and databases used by analysts and other individuals from the public and private sectors brought together to work on issues of common interest to organizations in the aviation community. ASAC also will be a resource available to the aviation community to analyze; inform; and assist scientists, engineers, analysts, and program managers in their daily work. The ASAC differs from previous NASA modeling efforts in that the economic behavior of buyers and sellers in the air transportation and aviation industries is central to its conception. Commercial air carriers, in particular, are an important stakeholder in this community. Therefore, to fully evaluate the implications of advanced aviation technologies, ASAC requires a flexible financial analysis tool that credibly links the technology of flight with the financial performance of commercial air carriers. By linking technical and financial information, NASA ensures that its technology programs will continue to benefit the user community. In addition, the analysis tool must be capable of being incorporated into the wide-ranging suite of economic and technical models that comprise ASAC. This report describes an Air Carrier Cost-Benefit Model (CBM) that meets these requirements. The ASAC CBM is distinguished from many of the aviation cost-benefit models by its exclusive focus on commercial air carriers. The model considers such benefit categories as time and fuel savings, utilization opportunities, reliability and capacity enhancements, and safety and security improvements. The model distinguishes between benefits that are predictable and those that occur randomly. By making such a distinction, the model captures the ability of air carriers to reoptimize scheduling and crew assignments for predictable benefits. In addition, the model incorporates a life-cycle cost module for new technology, which applies the costs of nonrecurring acquisitions, recurring maintenance and operation, and training to each aircraft equipment type independently.

Gaier, Eric M.↗

SOSS User Guide

This User Guide describes SOSS (Surface Operations Simulator and Scheduler) software build and graphic user interface. SOSS is a desktop application that simulates airport surface operations in fast time using traffic management algorithms. It moves aircraft on the airport surface based on information provided by scheduling algorithm prototypes, monitors separation violation and scheduling conformance, and produces scheduling algorithm performance data.

air traffic control↗

The Numerical Propulsion System Simulation: An Overview

Advances in computational technology and in physics-based modeling are making large-scale, detailed simulations of complex systems possible within the design environment. For example, the integration of computing, communications, and aerodynamics has reduced the time required to analyze major propulsion system components from days and weeks to minutes and hours. This breakthrough has enabled the detailed simulation of major propulsion system components to become a routine part of designing systems, providing the designer with critical information about the components early in the design process. This paper describes the development of the numerical propulsion system simulation (NPSS), a modular and extensible framework for the integration of multicomponent and multidisciplinary analysis tools using geographically distributed resources such as computing platforms, data bases, and people. The analysis is currently focused on large-scale modeling of complete aircraft engines. This will provide the product developer with a "virtual wind tunnel" that will reduce the number of hardware builds and tests required during the development of advanced aerospace propulsion systems.

Lytle, John K.↗

Towards Reliable Evaluation of Anomaly-Based Intrusion Detection Performance

This report describes the results of research into the effects of environment-induced noise on the evaluation process for anomaly detectors in the cyber security domain. This research was conducted during a 10-week summer internship program from the 19th of August, 2012 to the 23rd of August, 2012 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The research performed lies within the larger context of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) Smart Grid cyber security project, a Department of Energy (DoE) funded effort involving the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California/ Information Sciences Institute. The results of the present effort constitute an important contribution towards building more rigorous evaluation paradigms for anomaly-based intrusion detectors in complex cyber physical systems such as the Smart Grid. Anomaly detection is a key strategy for cyber intrusion detection and operates by identifying deviations from profiles of nominal behavior and are thus conceptually appealing for detecting "novel" attacks. Evaluating the performance of such a detector requires assessing: (a) how well it captures the model of nominal behavior, and (b) how well it detects attacks (deviations from normality). Current evaluation methods produce results that give insufficient insight into the operation of a detector, inevitably resulting in a significantly poor characterization of a detectors performance. In this work, we first describe a preliminary taxonomy of key evaluation constructs that are necessary for establishing rigor in the evaluation regime of an anomaly detector. We then focus on clarifying the impact of the operational environment on the manifestation of attacks in monitored data. We show how dynamic and evolving environments can introduce high variability into the data stream perturbing detector performance. Prior research has focused on understanding the impact of this variability in training data for anomaly detectors, but has ignored variability in the attack signal that will necessarily affect the evaluation results for such detectors. We posit that current evaluation strategies implicitly assume that attacks always manifest in a stable manner; we show that this assumption is wrong. We describe a simple experiment to demonstrate the effects of environmental noise on the manifestation of attacks in data and introduce the notion of attack manifestation stability. Finally, we argue that conclusions about detector performance will be unreliable and incomplete if the stability of attack manifestation is not accounted for in the evaluation strategy.

cyber defense↗

Kaona: Deep Searching and Curating Data from Aviation Safety Reporting Systems

Context: Several works in the literature have examined how safety narrative databases can be leveraged to share lessons learned. However, less attention has been given to augmenting existing processes for mining these safety reporting system databases. Aim: In this work, we introduce Kaona: An interface that weaves machine learning in existing aviation safety database mining activities. Method: We provide a use case of search, curation and newsletter writing to showcase how Kaona features build on existing processes and on its own to enhance information retrieval, curation and synthesis of narratives. Results: We created two instances of Kaona internally for evaluation, one using publicly available NASA’s ASRS narratives and another using publicly available C3RS narratives. Data ranged from 1998 to 2024. Conclusion: Our tool provides a new way to explore safety narratives, serving to re-imagine how text databases can benefit of novel information retrieval mechanisms in the era of large language models.

ASRS↗

Kaona: Deep Searching and Curating Aviation Safety Reporting Systems

Context: Several works in the literature have examined how safety narrative databases can be leveraged to share lessons learned. However, less attention has been given in augmenting existing processes of safety reporting systems. Aim: In this work, we introduce Kaona: An interface that weaves machine learning in existing aviation safety reporting systems activities. Method: We provide a use case of search, curation and newsletter writing to showcase how Kaona features build on existing processes and on its own to enhance information retrieval, curation and synthesis of narratives. Results: We created two instances of Kaona internally for evaluation, one using all public NASA's ASRS narratives and another using all public C3RS narratives. Data ranged from 1998 to 2024. Conclusion: Our tool provides a new way to explore safety narratives, serving to re-imagine how text databases can benefit of novel information retrieval mechanisms in the era of large language models.

asrs↗

Kaona: Deep Searching and Curating Safety Reporting Systems

Context: Several works in the literature have examined how safety narrative databases can be leveraged to share lessons learned. However, less attention has been given in augmenting existing processes of safety reporting systems. Aim: In this work, we introduce Kaona: An interface that weaves machine learning in existing aviation safety reporting systems activities. Method: We provide a use case of search, curation and newsletter writing to showcase how Kaona features build on existing processes and on its own to enhance information retrieval, curation and synthesis of narratives. Results: We created two instances of Kaona internally for evaluation, one using all public NASA's ASRS narratives and another using all public C3RS narratives. Data ranged from 1998 to 2024. Conclusion: Our tool provides a new way to explore safety narratives, serving to re-imagine how text databases can benefit of novel information retrieval mechanisms in the era of large language models.

asrs↗

Statistical Ensemble of Large Eddy Simulations

A statistical ensemble of large eddy simulations (LES) is run simultaneously for the same flow. The information provided by the different large scale velocity fields is used to propose an ensemble averaged version of the dynamic model. This produces local model parameters that only depend on the statistical properties of the flow. An important property of the ensemble averaged dynamic procedure is that it does not require any spatial averaging and can thus be used in fully inhomogeneous flows. Also, the ensemble of LES's provides statistics of the large scale velocity that can be used for building new models for the subgrid-scale stress tensor. The ensemble averaged dynamic procedure has been implemented with various models for three flows: decaying isotropic turbulence, forced isotropic turbulence, and the time developing plane wake. It is found that the results are almost independent of the number of LES's in the statistical ensemble provided that the ensemble contains at least 16 realizations.

Carati, Daniele↗

Model-Based Systems Engineering Pathfinder: Informing the Next Steps

In 2016, the NASA Engineering and Safety Center established a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) Pathfinder. The primary motivations for establishing the MBSE Pathfinder were to advance the Agency's applications of MBSE and capture lessons-learned to inform the next steps. The MBSE Pathfinder had four teams working in parallel for eight months on different topics of interest to NASA. The teams were encouraged to learn, and use creativity and innovation in their system modeling. The results were captured via reports, webinars, and a knowledge capture meeting. The approach taken for the MBSE Pathfinder was very successful in providing a number of lessons-learned for NASA and for other organizations considering MBSE or pathfinder efforts, and in building a very strong and collaborative user community.

Weiland, Karen J.↗

Generative Design and Digital Manufacturing: Using AI and Robots to Build Lightweight Instruments

Digital Engineering technologies are transforming long-stagnant development processes by applying the tremendous advancements in Information Technology (IT) to classical engineering tasks such as design, analysis, and fabrication of space-flight instrument structures. Generative Design leverages developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cloud computing to enable a paradigm shift in the design process, allowing the engineer to focus on defining the requirements and objectives of the design while AI generates optimized designs which comply with the input requirements. Digital Manufacturing allows these complex lightweight designs to be efficiently manufactured by directly fabricating from the resulting 3D models. The development of these two Digital Engineering technologies realizes significant mass savings while simultaneously reducing structure development time from months to days. This paper describes the development of the Evolved Structures process applying these technologies to spaceflight optical instrument structures including an example demonstrating greater than 10x reduction in development time/cost and greater than 3x improvement in structural performance.

Ryan McClelland↗

A Technology Maturation Plan for the Development of Nuclear Electric Propulsion

Over the last two years NASA’s Space Nuclear Propulsion (SNP) Project formulated a Technology Maturation Plan (TMP) for development of the sub-systems needed for a MW-class Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) system which, combined with a high thrust chemical propulsion stage, would be suitable for human missions to Mars. Two recent assessments, independently conducted by the National Academies for Science, Engineering, and Medicine and the NASA Engineering & Safety Center, concluded that the technologies required for a high-power NEP system are immature and the attendant risks insufficiently quantified to justify initiating a flight project. For NEP to be available as a viable option to meet flight opportunities in the late 2030s / 2040s time frame, development of the key sub-systems must begin now. SNP has subdivided the NEP system into five Critical Technology Elements (CTE): the nuclear reactor, power conversion, power management and distribution, electric propulsion sub-system, and the primary heat rejection system. Development plans for each of these CTEs have been drafted which will serve as the template for a focused milestone-driven research and development campaign intended to advance each CTE to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5. This will be accomplished by building and testing hardware at relevant power levels (~ 1 MW) and for relevant durations (2,500 hours, ~10% of the required operational lifetime) and conducting numerical modeling of the CTEs anchored by the accumulated test data to predict system performance and reliability. Concurrent with this work, high-level coupled system/mission modeling will be carried out to refine the key performance parameters that the various CTEs must achieve. Non-advocate reviews will be held at milestone points to assess progress and inform down-select decisions. The strategy for formulating the TMP was described previously; this paper describes ongoing progress on the drafting and baselining of the plan, including key specific details.

Space Nuclear Propulsion↗

A Technology Maturation Plan for the Development of Nuclear Electric Propulsion

Over the last two years NASA’s Space Nuclear Propulsion (SNP) Project formulated a Technology Maturation Plan (TMP) for development of the sub-systems needed for a MW-class Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) system which, combined with a high thrust chemical propulsion stage, would be suitable for human missions to Mars. Two recent assessments, independently conducted by the National Academies for Science, Engineering, and Medicine and the NASA Engineering & Safety Center, concluded that the technologies required for a high-power NEP system are immature and the attendant risks insufficiently quantified to justify initiating a flight project. For NEP to be available as a viable option to meet flight opportunities in the late 2030s / 2040s time frame, development of the key sub-systems must begin now. SNP has subdivided the NEP system into five Critical Technology Elements (CTE): the nuclear reactor, power conversion, power management and distribution, electric propulsion sub-system, and the primary heat rejection system. Development plans for each of these CTEs have been drafted which will serve as the template for a focused milestone-driven research and development campaign intended to advance each CTE to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5. This will be accomplished by building and testing hardware at relevant power levels (~ 1 MW) and for relevant durations (2,500 hours, ~10% of the required operational lifetime) and conducting numerical modeling of the CTEs anchored by the accumulated test data to predict system performance and reliability. Concurrent with this work, high-level coupled system/mission modeling will be carried out to refine the key performance parameters that the various CTEs must achieve. Non-advocate reviews will be held at milestone points to assess progress and inform down-select decisions. The strategy for formulating the TMP was described previously*; this paper describes ongoing progress on the drafting and baselining of the plan, including key specific details. * “Strategy for Developing Technologies for Megawatt-class Nuclear Electric Propulsion Systems”, K.A. Polzin, et. al., International Electric Propulsion Conference IEPC 2022, IEPC-2022-155

Nuclear Electric Propulsion↗

Clustering Days with Similar Airport Weather Conditions

On any given day, traffic flow managers must often rely on past experience and intuition when developing traffic flow management initiatives that mitigate imbalances between the aircraft demand and the weather impacted airport capacity. The goal of this study was to build on recent efforts to apply data mining classification and clustering algorithms to vast archives of historical weather and air traffic data to identify patterns and past decisions that can ultimately inform day-of-operations decision-making. More specifically, this study identified similar weather impacted days at select U.S. airports, and analyzed the traffic management initiatives implemented on these representative days. The identification of the similar days was accomplished by applying a decision tree algorithm to the hourly Localized Aviation Model Output Statistics Program observations and the arrival delays for Newark Liberty International Airport. The branches from the trained decision tree were subsequently pruned to identify four weather conditions that resulted in medium to high delays for the arrivals scheduled to Newark in 2012. Using these weather conditions, four, daily airport-level Weather Impacted Traffic Index values were calculated using the Localized Aviation Model Output Statistics Program observations and the 2012 scheduled arrival counts from the FAAs Aviation System Performance Metric system. The four, daily Weather Impacted Traffic Index values for 2012 were subsequently clustered using an Expectation Maximization clustering algorithm, and nine unique types of weather days at Newark were identified. By far the most prominent type of day at Newark was a day associated with relatively good weather conditions, where there was little convective activity, winds were low, ceilings and visibility were high and there was little precipitation. Moderate levels of convective activity characterized the next most prominent type of day. Days with persistently high winds or low ceiling and visibility levels were relatively rare in 2012. Lastly, the frequency at which Ground Delay Programs, Ground Stops and Miles-in-Trail restrictions were implemented on each of the typical types of days at Newark were analyzed. Based on the results, it does appear as if the usage of Miles-in-Trail, Ground Delay Program and Ground Stop restrictions correlates well with the severity of the weather associated with each unique type of weather impacted day at Newark. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that it is feasible to use historical weather and air traffic archives to provide guidance on the types of traffic management restrictions to implement in response to the weather conditions impacting an airport.

traffic flow management↗

Clustering Days with Similar Airport Weather Conditions

On any given day, traffic flow managers must often rely on past experience and intuition when developing traffic flow management initiatives that mitigate imbalances between the aircraft demand and the weather impacted airport capacity. The goal of this study was to build on recent efforts to apply data mining classification and clustering algorithms to vast archives of historical weather and air traffic data to identify patterns and past decisions that can ultimately inform day-of-operations decision-making. More specifically, this study identified similar weather impacted days at select U.S. airports, and analyzed the traffic management initiatives implemented on these representative days. The identification of the similar days was accomplished by applying a decision tree algorithm to the hourly Localized Aviation Model Output Statistics Program observations and the arrival delays for Newark Liberty International Airport. The branches from the trained decision tree were subsequently pruned to identify four weather conditions that resulted in medium to high delays for the arrivals scheduled to Newark in 2012. Using these weather conditions, four, daily airport-level Weather Impacted Traffic Index values were calculated using the Localized Aviation Model Output Statistics Program observations and the 2012 scheduled arrival counts from the FAAs Aviation System Performance Metric system. The four, daily Weather Impacted Traffic Index values for 2012 were subsequently clustered using an Expectation Maximization clustering algorithm, and nine unique types of weather days at Newark were identified. By far the most prominent type of day at Newark was a day associated with relatively good weather conditions, where there was little convective activity, winds were low, ceilings and visibility were high and there was little precipitation. Moderate levels of convective activity characterized the next most prominent type of day. Days with persistently high winds or low ceiling and visibility levels were relatively rare in 2012. Lastly, the frequency at which Ground Delay Programs, Ground Stops and Miles-in-Trail restrictions were implemented on each of the typical types of days at Newark were analyzed. Based on the results, it does appear as if the usage of Miles-in-Trail, Ground Delay Program and Ground Stop restrictions correlates well with the severity of the weather associated with each unique type of weather impacted day at Newark. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that it is feasible to use historical weather and air traffic archives to provide guidance on the types of traffic management restrictions to implement in response to the weather conditions impacting an airport.

weather↗

Enhancing the NASA Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resource Web Data Delivery System with Geographic Information System (GIS) Capabilities

Renewable energy technologies are changing the face of the world's energy market. Currently, these technologies are being incorporated within existing structures to increase energy efficiency. Crucial to the success of the emerging renewable market is the availability of accurate, global solar radiation, and meteorology data. This poster traces the history of the development of an effort to distribute data parameters from NASA's research for use in the energy sector applications spanning from renewable energy to energy efficiency. These data may be useful to several renewable energy sectors: solar and wind power generation, agricultural crop modeling, and sustainable buildings.

Chandler, William S.↗

Transition flight control room automation

The Workstation Prototype Laboratory is currently working on a number of projects which can have a direct impact on ground operations automation. These projects include: (1) The fuel cell monitoring system (FCMS), which will monitor and detect problems with the fuel cells on the shuttle. FCMS will use a combination of rules (forward/backward) and multithreaded procedures, which run concurrently with the rules, to implement the malfunction algorithms of the EGIL flight controllers. The combination of rule-based reasoning and procedural reasoning allows us to more easily map the malfunction algorithms into a real-time system implementation. (2) A graphical computation language (AGCOMPL) is an experimental prototype to determine the benefits and drawbacks of using a graphical language to design computations (algorithms) to work on shuttle or space station telemetry and trajectory data. (3) The design of a system will allow a model of an electrical system, including telemetry sensors, to be configured on the screen graphically using previously defined electrical icons. This electrical model would then be used to generate rules and procedures for detecting malfunctions in the electrical components of the model. (4) A generic message management (GMM) system is being designed for real-time applications as a message management system which sends advisory messages to a user. The primary purpose of GMM is to reduce the risk of overloading a user with information when multiple failures occur and to assist the developer in the devising an explanation facility. The emphasis of our work is to develop practical tools and techniques, including identification of appropriate software tools to support research, application, and tool building activities, while determining the feasibility of a given approach.

Welborn, Curtis Ray↗