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The presentation reviews Agency process requirements and the purpose, benefits, and experiences or seven software engineering processes. The processes include: product integration, configuration management, verification, software assurance, measurement and analysis, requirements management, and planning and monitoring.
The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Survey (NASS) collects and publishes crop growth status and soil moisture conditions in major US agricultural regions. The operationally-produced weekly reports are based on survey information. The surveys are based on visual assessments and ? in the case of soil moisture ? report soil moisture levels in one of four categories (Very Short, Short, Adequate and Surplus). In this study, we show that these reports have remarkable correspondence with the NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Level-4 Soil Moisture (L4SM) product. This consistency allows the combining the two distinct types of data to produce a value-added combination, which is mapped fields rather than State-by-State tables and it is refreshed daily rather than weekly. In this study classification thresholds are derived for L4SM by mapping cumulative distribution functions of L4SM surface and root-zone SM to the categorical NASS SM conditions. The results show that, year-over-year, the SMAP cumulative SM distributions are consistent with the NASS SM conditions and, furthermore, that the temporal evolution of the SMAP-derived thresholds is consistent with the seasonal crop growth cycles from year to year. The results signify that the SMAP SM retrievals are relatable to SM estimation conducted in agriculture by land managers and farmers, which underlines the general applicability of the SMAP data.
The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) is home to major NASA satellite precipitation measurement missions including the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) as well as other NASA projects. Accurate and timely available global and regional precipitation products play an important role in research and applications around the world. The GES DISC provides near-real-time, near-global precipitation products (e.g.IMERG) to support a wide variety of interdisciplinary research and operational activities including flood modeling, landslides, crop monitoring and assessment, vector-borne diseases, etc. Climate data record products (e.g.GPCP3) are essential for climate research, assessment, model evaluation and applications. To facilitate data access and exploration, the GES DISC has developed data services such asGiovanni, an online visualization and analysis tool for easy access to over 2000 satellite- and model-based variables. Established in the mid 1980s, the GES DISC also distributes data in other disciplines including hydrology, atmospheric chemistry, atmospheric dynamics, etc. In this presentation, we will present an update on global precipitation products and data services including the new IMERG V06B suite, the latest version of GPCP (Version 3) and value-added data subsetting services (L34RS, L2S).
The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), in addition to serving the Earth Science community as one of the major Distributed Active Archives Centers (DAACs), provides much more than just data. Among the value-added services available to general users are subsetting data spatially and/or by parameter, online analysis (to avoid downloading unnecessarily all the data), and assistance in obtaining data from other centers. Services available to data producers and high-volume users include consulting on building new products with standard formats and metadata and construction of data management systems. A particularly useful service is data processing at the DISC (i.e., close to the input data) with the users algorithm. This can take a number of different forms: as a configuration-managed algorithm within the main processing stream; as a stand-alone program next to the on-line data storage; as build-it-yourself code within the Near-Archive Data Mining (NADM) system; or as an on-the-fly analysis with simple algorithms embedded into the web-based tools. Partnerships between the GES DISC and scientists, both producers and users, allow the scientists to concentrate on science, while the GES DISC handles the data management, e.g., formats, integration, and data processing. The existing data management infrastructure at the GES DISC supports a wide spectrum of options: from simple data support to sophisticated on-line analysis tools, producing economies of scale and rapid time-to-deploy. At the same time, such partnerships allow the GES DISC to serve the user community more efficiently and to better prioritize on-line holdings. Several examples of successful partnerships are described in the presentation.
The objective of this document is to assess the value of launch collision avoidance (COLA) practices and provide recommendations regarding its implementation for NASA robotic missions. The scope of this effort is limited to launch COLA screens against catalog objects that are either spacecraft or debris. No modifications to manned safety COLA practices are considered in this effort. An assessment of the value of launch COLA can be broken down into two fundamental questions: 1) Does collision during launch represent a significant risk to either the payload being launched or the space environment? 2) Can launch collision mitigation be performed in a manner that provides meaningful risk reduction at an acceptable level of operational impact? While it has been possible to piece together partial answers to these questions for some time, the first attempt to comprehensively address them is documented in reference (a), Launch COLA Operations: an Examination of Data Products, Procedures, and Thresholds, Revision A. This report is the product of an extensive study that addressed fundamental technical questions surrounding launch collision avoidance analysis and practice. The results provided in reference (a) will be cited throughout this document as these two questions are addressed. The premise of this assessment is that in order to conclude that launch COLA is a value-added activity, the answer to both of these questions must be affirmative. A "no" answer to either of these questions points toward the conclusion that launch COLA provides little or no risk mitigation benefit. The remainder of this assessment will focus on addressing these two questions.
The objective of this document is to assess the value of collision on launch assessment (COLA, often referred to as “launch COLA”) practices and provide recommendations regarding its implementation for NASA robotic missions. The scope of this effort is limited to launch COLA screens against catalog objects that are either spacecraft or debris. No modifications to manned safety launch COLA practices are considered in this effort. An assessment of the value of launch COLA can be broken down into two fundamental questions: 1) Does collision during launch represent a significant risk to either the payload being launched or the space environment? 2) Can launch collision mitigation be performed in a manner that provides meaningful risk reduction at an acceptable level of operational impact? While it has been possible to piece together partial answers to these questions for some time, the first attempt to comprehensively address them is documented in reference (a), Launch COLA Operations: an Examination of Data Products, Procedures, and Thresholds, Revision A. This report is the product of an extensive study that addressed fundamental technical questions surrounding launch collision avoidance analysis and practice. The results provided in reference (a) will be cited throughout this document as these two questions are addressed. The premise of this assessment is that in order to conclude that launch COLA is a value-added activity, the answer to both of these questions must be affirmative. A “no” answer to either of these questions points toward the conclusion that launch COLA provides little or no risk mitigation benefit. The remainder of this assessment will focus on addressing these two questions.
NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), and her public cloud version OpenNEX, have become platforms supporting scientific collaboration, knowledge sharing and research for the entire Earth science community. To date, a number of custom tools and capabilities have been integrated into the platforms. However, such integration has to undergo a case-by-case manual process thus lacks scalability. This timely project builds an App Store onto OpenNEX as a building block. Climate data analytics tools/programs can be easily uploaded, shared, organized, searched, and recommended like photos and videos on the YouTube. The foundation of our App Store is a provenance server, which not only records metadata but also execution history of climate data analytics apps including the input data and parameters, output data and products, who runs the app for which purpose, and how apps may be chained into workflows. Researchers can thus understand, reproduce, and repurpose existing apps and workflows. Machine learning approaches are applied to mine provenance to provide recommend-as-you-go services for Earth scientists, such as to recommend suitable apps and workflow snippets. A browser-based workflow tool is also provided for researchers to explore the provenance server and design value-added workflows. Scalability, sustainability, extensibility, usability, adaptability, security and privacy are considered in the App Store.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is asking more of its human spaceflight programs than ever before through the collective Artemis Missions. The NASA Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program contributes to NASA’s human spaceflight goals by providing IV&V services for NASA’s critical spacecraft and ground software. The IV&V Program is tasked with providing assurance from both individual and integrated mission software perspectives. The Artemis IV&V organization is actively supporting six distinct development efforts: Orion, the Space Launch System (SLS), Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), Mission Control Center (MCC), the Lunar Gateway, and the Human Landing System (HLS), representing a wide diversity of developer organizations, management structures, and development approaches. With much of this extremely complex flight and ground software being essential to human safety both on the ground and in space, Artemis IV&V is likewise challenged to provide more value-added assurance to future Artemis missions within a constrained budget. To meet this challenge, Artemis IV&V employs a variety of novel and evolving “Adaptive IV&V” approaches for planning and executing IV&V analysis to increase both the efficiency and effectiveness of the IV&V Program’s assurance activities, and to address the difficulties imposed by assuring software for a large, highly integrated, multi-mission enterprise managed and executed by physically and organizationally distinct programs. Instilling agile principles like iterative planning cycles, self-organizing teams, and regular retrospectives, into IV&V planning and execution has led to a more rapid turnaround of a minimum viable assurance product and allowed for increased alignment of assurance activities with development progress. Adopting an assurance case methodology has led to greater consistency and clearer communication of assurance design and provided a foundation for long-term maintenance of assurance plans, products, and results across missions. The IV&V-developed Assurance / Safety Case Analytical Network (A-SCAN) framework and tool has enabled the quantification and tracking of system/software risk and confidence. These confidence measures provide a means to repeatedly express the impact of planned and completed assurance work and the remaining residual risk. Applied as part of a “Follow-the-Risk” organizational ethos, this allows consistent rightsizing of analysis rigor and intensity commensurate with the perceived risk of defects, as well as appropriate targeting of the highest risk areas of the software to find safety issues before they can manifest. Finally, the development of the IV&V Advanced Risk Reduction Integrated Software Test and Operations Tri-program Lightweight Environment (ARRISTOTLE), an integrated software-only simulation of Orion, SLS, and EGS systems, has made it possible to independently test integrated pad and flight scenarios and inject faults to observe how the Artemis multi-program, mission software behaves in degraded modes and in response to hazards. These adaptive IV&V investments have enabled Artemis IV&V to become more efficient and effective in IV&V planning and execution and respond more readily to changes in the risk landscape, increasing the breadth and depth of risk reduction possible within the available resources. Residual risk tracking allows IV&V to communicate more effectively with stakeholders, both internal and external at all levels, and inform key decision-making personnel. This evolving assurance design approach provides IV&V surety that work is performed in the highest risk, most value-added areas of the software, to keep our astronauts and ground crews safe and ensure mission success.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is asking more of its human spaceflight programs than ever before through the collective Artemis Missions. The NASA Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program contributes to NASA’s human spaceflight goals by providing IV&V services for NASA’s critical spacecraft and ground software. The IV&V Program is tasked with providing assurance from both individual and integrated mission software perspectives. The Artemis IV&V organization is actively supporting six distinct development efforts: Orion, the Space Launch System (SLS), Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), Mission Control Center (MCC), the Lunar Gateway, and the Human Landing System (HLS), representing a wide diversity of developer organizations, management structures, and development approaches. With much of this extremely complex flight and ground software being essential to human safety both on the ground and in space, Artemis IV&V is likewise challenged to provide more value-added assurance to future Artemis missions within a constrained budget. To meet this challenge, Artemis IV&V employs a variety of novel and evolving “Adaptive IV&V” approaches for planning and executing IV&V analysis to increase both the efficiency and effectiveness of the IV&V Program’s assurance activities, and to address the difficulties imposed by assuring software for a large, highly integrated, multi-mission enterprise managed and executed by physically and organizationally distinct programs. Instilling agile principles like iterative planning cycles, self-organizing teams, and regular retrospectives, into IV&V planning and execution has led to a more rapid turnaround of a minimum viable assurance product and allowed for increased alignment of assurance activities with development progress. Adopting an assurance case methodology has led to greater consistency and clearer communication of assurance design and provided a foundation for long-term maintenance of assurance plans, products, and results across missions. The IV&V-developed Assurance / Safety Case Analytical Network (A-SCAN) framework and tool has enabled the quantification and tracking of system/software risk and confidence. These confidence measures provide a means to repeatedly express the impact of planned and completed assurance work and the remaining residual risk. Applied as part of a “Follow-the-Risk” organizational ethos, this allows consistent rightsizing of analysis rigor and intensity commensurate with the perceived risk of defects, as well as appropriate targeting of the highest risk areas of the software to find safety issues before they can manifest. Finally, the development of the IV&V Advanced Risk Reduction Integrated Software Test and Operations Tri-program Lightweight Environment (ARRISTOTLE), an integrated software-only simulation of Orion, SLS, and EGS systems, has made it possible to independently test integrated pad and flight scenarios and inject faults to observe how the Artemis multi-program, mission software behaves in degraded modes and in response to hazards. These adaptive IV&V investments have enabled Artemis IV&V to become more efficient and effective in IV&V planning and execution and respond more readily to changes in the risk landscape, increasing the breadth and depth of risk reduction possible within the available resources. Residual risk tracking allows IV&V to communicate more effectively with stakeholders, both internal and external at all levels, and inform key decision-making personnel. This evolving assurance design approach provides IV&V surety that work is performed in the highest risk, most value-added areas of the software, to keep our astronauts and ground crews safe and ensure mission success.
The United States (U.S.) plans to return to the Moon by 2020, with the development of a new human-rated space transportation system to replace the Space Shuttle, which is due for retirement in 2010 after it completes its missions of building the International Space Station and servicing the Hubble Space Telescope. Powering the future of space-based scientific exploration will be the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle, which will transport the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle to orbit where it will rendezvous with the Lunar Lander. which will be delivered by the Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle. This new transportation infrastructure, developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), will allow astronauts to leave low-Earth orbit for extended lunar exploration and preparation for the first footprint on Mars. All space-based operations begin and are controlled from Earth. NASA's philosophy is to deliver safe, reliable, and cost-effective solutions to sustain a multi-billion-dollar program across several decades. Leveraging 50 years of lessons learned, NASA is partnering with private industry, while building on proven hardware experience. This paper will discuss how the Engineering Directorate at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center is working with the Ares Projects Office to streamline ground operations concepts and reduce costs. Currently, NASA's budget is around $17 billion, which is less than 1 percent of the U.S. Federal budget. Of this amount, NASA invests approximately $4.5 billion each year in Space Shuttle operations, regardless of whether the spacecraft is flying or not. The affordability requirement is for the Ares I to reduce this expense by 50 percent, in order to allow NASA to invest more in space-based scientific operations. Focusing on this metric, the Engineering Directorate provides several solutions-oriented approaches, including Lean/Six Sigma practices and streamlined hardware testing and integration, such as assembling major hardware elements before shipping to the Kennedy Space Center for launch operations. This paper provides top-level details for several cost saving initiatives, including both process and product improvements that will result in space transportation systems that are designed with operations efficiencies in mind. The Engineering Directorate provides both the intellectual capital embodied in an experienced workforce and unique facilities in which to validate the information technology tools that allow a nationwide team to collaboratively connect across miles that separate them and the engineering disciplines that integrate various piece parts into a whole system. As NASA transforms ground-based operations, it also is transitioning its workforce from an era of intense hands-on labor to a new one of mechanized conveniences and robust hardware with simpler interfaces. Ensuring that space exploration is on sound footing requires that operations efficiencies be designed into the transportation system and implemented in the development stage. Applying experience gained through decades of ground and space op'erations, while using value-added processes and modern business and engineering tools, is the philosophy upon which a new era of exploration will be built to solve some of the most pressing exploration challenges today -- namely, safety, reliability, and affordability.
We present the Heraklion Extragalactic Catalogue, or HECATE, an all-sky value-added galaxy catalogue, aiming to facilitate present and future multiwavelength and multi messenger studies in the local Universe. It contains 204 733 galaxies up to a red shift of 0.047 (D200 Mpc), and it is>50 per cent complete in terms of the B-band luminosity density at distances in the0–170 Mpc range. By incorporating and homogenizing data from astronomical data bases and multiwavelength surveys, the catalogue offers positions, sizes, distances, morphological classifications, star formation rates, stellar masses, metallicities, and nuclear activity classifications. This wealth of information can enable a wide range of applications, such as (i) demographic studies of extragalactic sources, (ii) initial characterization of transient events, and (iii) searches for electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational-wave events. The catalogue is publicly available to the community at a dedicated portal, which will also host future extensions in terms of the covered volume and data products.
The disastrous tornado outbreak in Alabama on April 27, 2011 greatly impacted the economy of the state. On record, the tornado outbreak was the second deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. When considering the agricultural and value-added activities such as food and timber processing, farm inputs, manufacturing, transportation, and retail sales, the dollar value of Alabama agribusiness annually exceeds $40 billion (NASS, 2011). This research aims to examine how the timber and agriculture damage affected the state economy of Alabama and will be used to aid in long-term economic recovery. ASTER imagery was used along with ground-truthed NASS (National Agriculture Statistics Service) crop location records to verify the economic impact tornadoes had on the agricultural economy of the state. This swath damage can be calculated by correlating tornado path with NASS statistics on crop yield, precisely showing the fields affected and dollars lost to this disaster. Not only can this be executed manually using ENVI and ArcGIS, but also through the use of Python, a programming language that has the ability to automate the process, creating a product for initial damage assessment.
The disastrous tornado outbreak in Alabama on April 27, 2011 greatly impacted the economy of the state. On record, the tornado outbreak was the second deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. When considering the agricultural and value-added activities such as food and timber processing, farm inputs, manufacturing, transportation, and retail sales, the dollar value of Alabama agribusiness annually exceeds $40 billion (NASS, 2011). This research aims to examine how the timber and agriculture damage affected the state economy of Alabama and will be used to aid in long-term economic recovery. ASTER imagery was used along with ground-truthed NASS (National Agriculture Statistics Service) crop location records to verify the economic impact tornadoes had on the agricultural economy of the state. This swath damage can be calculated by correlating tornado path with NASS statistics on crop yield, precisely showing the fields affected and dollars lost to this disaster. Not only can this be executed manually using ENVI and ArcGIS, but also through the use of Python, a programming language that has the ability to automate the process, creating a product for initial damage assessment.