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NASA Human Spaceflight Architecture Team Lunar Destination Activities

NASA's Human Spaceflight Architecture Team (HAT) Lunar Destination Team has been developing a number of "Design Reference Missions" (DRM) to inform exploration architecture development, transportation approaches, and destination elements and operations. There are four destinations being considered in the HAT studies: Cis-Lunar, Lunar, Near Earth Asteroids and Mars. The lunar destination includes all activities that occur on the moon itself, but not low lunar orbit operations or Earth Moon LaGrange points which are the responsibility of the HAT Cis-Lunar Team. This paper will review the various surface DRMs developed as representative scenarios that could occur in a human lunar return. The approaches have been divided into two broad categories: a seven day short stay mission with global capabilities and a longer extended duration stay of 28 days which is limited to the lunar poles as a landing zone. The surface elements, trade studies, traverses, concept of operations and other relevant issues and methodologies will be presented and discussed in the context and framework of the HAT ground rules and assumptions which are constrained by NASA's available transportation systems. An international collaborative effort based on the 2011 Global Exploration Roadmap (GER) will also be examined and evaluated.

Connolly, J. F.↗

A Principled Approach to the Specification of System Architectures for Space Missions

Modern space systems are increasing in complexity and scale at an unprecedented pace. Consequently, innovative methods, processes, and tools are needed to cope with the increasing complexity of architecting these systems. A key systems challenge in practice is the ability to scale processes, methods, and tools used to architect complex space systems. Traditionally, the process for specifying space system architectures has largely relied on capturing the system architecture in informal descriptions that are often embedded within loosely coupled design documents and domain expertise. Such informal descriptions often lead to misunderstandings between design teams, ambiguous specifications, difficulty in maintaining consistency as the architecture evolves throughout the system development life cycle, and costly design iterations. Therefore, traditional methods are becoming increasingly inefficient to cope with ever-increasing system complexity. We apply the principles of component-based design and platform-based design to the development of the system architecture for a practical space system to demonstrate feasibility of our approach using SysML. Our results show that we are able to apply a systematic design method to manage system complexity, thus enabling effective data management, semantic coherence and traceability across different levels of abstraction in the design chain. Just as important, our approach enables interoperability among heterogeneous tools in a concurrent engineering model based design environment.

platform-based design↗

JPL Project Information Management: A Continuum Back to the Future

This slide presentation reviews the practices and architecture that support information management at JPL. This practice has allowed concurrent use and reuse of information by primary and secondary users. The use of this practice is illustrated in the evolution of the Mars Rovers from the Mars Pathfinder to the development of the Mars Science Laboratory. The recognition of the importance of information management during all phases of a project life cycle has resulted in the design of an information system that includes metadata, has reduced the risk of information loss through the use of an in-process appraisal, shaping of project's appreciation for capturing and managing the information on one project for re-use by future projects as a natural outgrowth of the process. This process has also assisted in connection of geographically disbursed partners into a team through sharing information, common tools and collaboration.

Information Management↗

SWS Project Relevant Research

Project Overview Tech Challenge 2 - In-Time Safety Management for Emerging Operations - (2018-19) Initial Architecture and Information Req'ts - UTM-like ecosystem; ASIAS/SWIM-like info sharing - Ref: NASA TM-2020-220440 - (2020-2021) Phase 1 - Architecture and SFCs tailored to domain risks - Build collaborations on key topics - (2021-2022) Phase 2 - Services with infrastructure for urban ops - Broader in-time risk assessment span - (2023-2024) Phase 3 - With and by partners - Urban sUAS and AAM/UAM domains

Wind modeling↗

An Approach for Defining IASMS Services, Functions, and Capabilities

Assuring safety in the NAS with the inclusion of new entrants, such as Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), will require overcoming unique safety challenges that result from combining innovative technologies with novel airspace concepts for moving people and cargo using autonomous vehicles. The focus of the In-time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) is to overcome AAM’s safety assurance challenges. The IASMS Concept of Operations (ConOps) describes an interconnected set of services, functions, and capabilities (SFCs) designed to manage operational risks, identify unknown risks, and inform system designs. This paper describes an approach for defining SFCs based on technology trends in research, assessment of known and unknown risks in voluntary safety reports, and causal and contributing factors in aviation accidents and incidents. This approach would identify potential SFCs that further expand the Monitor, Assess, and Mitigate (M-A-M) functionality that represents the enabling framework of the IASMS. Safety implications that will result from integration of AAM in the transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS) were addressed in National Academies committees reports on AAM and IASMS. Development of a ConOps for IASMS was a top recommendation and can be represented as a reframing of safety assurance that builds on real-time alerting such as the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System, and adds the more encompassing in-time temporal parameter in recognition of the different timelines for collecting and assessing safety data for risk mitigations. For example, mining for safety trends from data sources such as the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing system occurs over a longer time period. Research on AAM operations poses that SFCs can be designed to monitor the safety margin appropriate for AAM including with regards to the distance between current flight parameters and nominal ideal conditions. These in-time comparisons will become more complex as the density of operations increases at least in certain areas and can include planned and actual 4D trajectory, and in-time comparisons having implications on conflict modeling and prediction including expected and actual departure time, fix/waypoint crossing times, and arrival time. These comparisons would be integrated as part of SFCs that redefine and inform new safety margin. An increased safety margin improves management of operational risks while reducing the potential for anomalies. An increased safety margin also has implications for operator confidence in the certainty of its operations and trust in automation. Technology trends in research could be used to refine existing SFCs and define needs for additional SFCs that provide safety improvements to the design and operation of vehicles, airspace design, and operator performance requirements. NASA is developing innovative approaches to safeguard against major accidents and incidents that have occurred in the NAS and those anticipated with the inclusion of envisioned AAM operations. The innovations use operational performance data to monitor, detect, and predict flight variations exceeding safe nominal patterns, such as would be caused by navigational error, severe weather complications, or hijacking of UAS controls. These innovative approaches have high potential to prevent accidents and incidents in the new AAM era. It is anticipated that elements of the innovations will evolve into SFCs for the IASMS. Voluntary safety reports can be monitored to identify anomalies related to design or operational performance risks. Reports could be periodically monitored and assessed for specific topics. Reports might serve as weak signals or precursors indicative of emergent risk such as when combined with other safety information. The architecture could include SFCs that are based on voluntary safety reports recognizing the periodic temporal nature of data analysis. As previously mentioned, aviation accidents with their causal and contributing precursors can inform the need for SFCs in the IASMS. Accidents and incidents at San Francisco International Airport such as Asiana 214 and Air Canada 759 illustrate how combinations of different factors lead to increased risk. These types of precursors and different factors have implications on the types of SFCs that could be needed to monitor and manage different sources and types of design and operational risk. Continuing to assure the safety of AAM as designs and operations gain in complexity can be accompanied by defining SFCs that also increase in complexity. These SFCs can leverage information from findings and recommendations synthesized across on-going research, voluntary safety reports, and accident and incident reports. These SFCs can serve to refine accuracy of algorithms and resolve limitations with current practices. The IASMS architecture represents the framework for the SFCs and their critical role in safety assurance.

In-Time Aviation Safety Management System↗

Orion Flight Test 1 Architecture: Observed Benefits of a Model Based Engineering Approach

This paper details how a NASA-led team is using a model-based systems engineering approach to capture, analyze and communicate the end-to-end information system architecture supporting the first unmanned orbital flight of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Exploration Vehicle. Along with a brief overview of the approach and its products, the paper focuses on the observed program-level benefits, challenges, and lessons learned; all of which may be applied to improve system engineering tasks for characteristically similarly challenges

Multi-Purpose Crew Exploration Vehicle.↗

Standards in the architectural effort

The NASA Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Project Architecture Group was established to build a framework for modernization, provide guidance and direction for standardization and integration efforts, and to develop a set of concepts, interfaces, and entities to specifiy standards. The STI data processing architecture is a set of diagrams and descriptions that characterize the principal functions and services as well as hardware and software components. The use of standards promotes scalability and interchangeability.

Markham, Howard↗

Software Defined Radio Architecture Contributions to Next Generation Space Communications

Space communications architecture concepts, comprising the elements of the system, the interactions among them, and the principles that govern their development, are essential factors in developing National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) future exploration and science missions. Accordingly, vital architectural attributes encompass flexibility, the extensibility to insert future capabilities, and to enable evolution to provide interoperability with other current and future systems. Space communications architectures and technologies for this century must satisfy a growing set of requirements, including those for Earth sensing, collaborative observation missions, robotic scientific missions, human missions for exploration of the Moon and Mars where surface activities require supporting communications, and in-space observatories for observing the earth, as well as other star systems and the universe. An advanced, integrated, communications infrastructure will enable the reliable, multipoint, high-data-rate capabilities needed on demand to provide continuous, maximum coverage for areas of concentrated activity. Importantly, the cost/value proposition of the future architecture must be an integral part of its design; an affordable and sustainable architecture is indispensable within anticipated future budget environments. Effective architecture design informs decision makers with insight into the capabilities needed to efficiently satisfy the demanding space-communication requirements of future missions and formulate appropriate requirements. A driving requirement for the architecture is the extensibility to address new requirements and provide low-cost on-ramps for new capabilities insertion, ensuring graceful growth as new functionality and new technologies are infused into the network infrastructure. In addition to extensibility, another key architectural attribute of the space communication equipment's interoperability with other NASA communications systems, as well as those communications and navigation systems operated by international space agencies and civilian and government agencies. In this paper, we review the philosophies, technologies, architectural attributes, mission services, and communications capabilities that form the structure of candidate next-generation integrated communication architectures for space communications and navigation. A key area that this paper explores is from the development and operation of the software defined radio for the NASA Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Testbed currently on the International Space Station (ISS). Evaluating the lessons learned from development and operation feed back into the communications architecture. Leveraging the reconfigurability provides a change in the way that operations are done and must be considered. Quantifying the impact on the NASA Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) software defined radio architecture provides feedback to keep the standard useful and up to date. NASA is not the only customer of these radios. Software defined radios are developed for other applications, and taking advantage of these developments promotes an architecture that is cost effective and sustainable. Developments in the following areas such as an updated operating environment, higher data rates, networking and security can be leveraged. The ability to sustain an architecture that uses radios for multiple markets can lower costs and keep new technology infused.

Lessons Learned↗

An architecture for intelligent interfaces - Outline of an approach to supporting operators of complex systems

The conceptual design of a comprehensive support system for operators of complex systems is presented. Key functions within the support system architecture include information management, error monitoring, and adaptive aiding. One of the central knowledge bases underlying this functionality is an operator model that involves a 'matrix' of algorithmic and symbolic models for assessing and predicting an operator's activities, awareness resources, intentions, and performance. Functional block diagrams are presented for the overall architecture as well as the key elements within this architecture. A variety of difficult design issues are discussed and ongoing efforts aimed at resolving these issues are noted.

Rouse, W. B.↗

Data Management Symposium, Huntsville, Ala., October 18, 19, 1977, Proceedings

The transfer, processing, and use of satellite data are discussed. Topics relating to simulation and processing techniques include computer design assessments through simulation, data system dynamic simulation, and future timing accuracy requirements and procedures for data processing. Subjects relevant to data base management systems and users and their needs include an image-based information system architecture for correlation satellite and topological data base, efficient searching and sorting applications using an associative array processor, analysis of user's needs for a large technical data base, and variable length data formats. The technology development outlook was considered with attention to data systems technology outlook for supporting NASA programs, a user-oriented interactive information extraction system, and flow control and sorting techniques for telemetry packets.

Castelli, A.↗

Analytical Needs in a Sample Receiving Facility: Input from the MSR Operation Definition Team

The return of scientifically selected samples from Mars would provide a rare opportunity forinvestigation with the full range of the latest technology available, but to take full advantageof this opportunity, it is important to plan ahead to ensure the pristine nature of the samplesupon arrival within the Earth environment until scientific investigations can begin.The NASA/ESA science community-driven MSR Science Planning Group – Phase 2 (MSPG2)delivered recommendations and guidance regarding curation (1) and science (2, 3) activities tobe performed on the samples under containment. High-level requirements for the infrastruc-ture were also developed by MSPG2 (4). In order to prepare infrastructure-targeted input forthe ESA and NASA facility studies planned in the 2022-2023 timeframe, the agency-led MSROperational Scenarios Definition Team (MOSDT) was assembled to conceptualize the sampleoperations that will inform future architecture teams. Emphasis was placed on the respon-sibility of MOSDT to use community-defined requirements and to represent the view of the international scientific community.All necessary and sufficient instruments and analytical needs described in MSPG2 were inte-grated in MOSDT main deliverable, the operational workflow (see Hays et al, this conference).In MSPG2, notional instruments were split between curation analytical needs, and objective-driven (time-sensitive and sterilization-sensitive) science analytical needs. In MOSDT, whilethe first phases of curation, “pre-Basic Characterization” and “Basic Characterization” wererather streamlined and separate from other analytical needs, “Preliminary Examination” and“Science” instruments were not always physically segregated. In addition to the necessary andsufficient instruments described by MSPG2, the MOSDT recommended additional supportequipment for sterilization, cleanliness and contamination monitoring.It was sometimes necessary for the MOSDT to rely on assumptions to integrate instruments inthe activity workflow. In general, the assumptions were very conservative to limit contaminationand cross-contamination risks. It is expected that future work to refine limits of contaminationwill enable optimization of instrumentation.The community was consulted during the course of the MOSDT work. This abstract’s aimis two-fold: on one hand, inform the scientific community and overall MSR stakeholders, tobring their attention on the analytical needs currently considered as necessary and sufficient;on the other hand, to solicit feedback from a larger community audience to optimize and refineanalytical needs during the next phases of MSR ground-segment preparation.Disclaimer: The decision to implement Mars Sample Return will not be finalized until NASA’scompletion of the program’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. This docu-ment is being made available for informational purposes only.[1] Tait et al. (2021) Preliminary planning for Mars Sample Return (MSR) curation activities ina Sample Receiving Facility (SRF). Astrobiology in press, doi:10.1089/ast.2021.0105. [2] Toscaet al. (2021) Time-sensitive aspects of Mars Sample Return (MSR) science. Astrobiologyin press, doi:10.1089/ast.2021.0115. [3] Velbel et al. (2021) Planning implications relatedto sterilization-sensitive science investigations associated with Mars Sample Return (MSR).Astrobiology in press, doi:10.1089/ast.2021.0113. [4] Carrier et al. (2021) Science and curationconsiderations for the design of a Mars Sample Return (MSR) Sample Receiving Facility (SRF).Astrobiology in press, doi:10.1089/ast.2021.0110.

Mars Sample Return↗

Operational Workflow in a Sample Receiving Facility: Input from the MSR Operation Definition Team

The return of scientifically selected samples from Mars would provide a rare opportunity for investigation with the full range of the latest technology available. To take full advantage of this opportunity, it is important to plan ahead to ensure the pristine nature of the samples upon arrival within the Earth environment until scientific investigations can begin. The NASA/ESA science community-driven MSR Science Planning Group – Phase 2 (MSPG2) delivered recommendations and guidance regarding curation (1) and science (2,3) activities to be performed on the samples under containment. High-level requirements for the infrastructure were also developed by MSPG2 (4). In order to prepare infrastructure-targeted input for the ESA and NASA facility studies planned in the 2022-2023 timeframe, the MSR agency-led Operational Scenarios Definition Team (MOSDT) was assembled to conceptualize the sample operations that will inform future architecture teams. Emphasis was placed on the responsibility of MOSDT to use community-defined requirements and to represent the view of the international scientific community. The main deliverable of MOSDT was an operational workflow for a Sample Receiving Facility (SRF). Two other deliverables were produced: a report to narrate the workflow, and a list of instruments (see Hutzler et al., this conference). Activities described in the main sequence of the workflow range from engineering operations to curation to science, with the latter term being used here as the science to be done within a SRF. Side sequences (e.g. engineering inspection of hardware, head gas extraction) were also identified, and detailed when they would have a significant impact on the infrastructure of a SRF. It was necessary for the MOSDT to rely on assumptions for some steps and activities, and though these were kept to a minimum (and are described in both the report supporting the workflow and in the full presentation), in general, the assumptions and overall work were very conservative, as the impact of underestimating the scope of the SRF infrastructure was considered more detrimental than overestimating it. It is expected that future work will be able to confirm or inform these assumptions. The community was consulted during the course of the MOSDT work. This abstract’s aim is two-fold: on one hand, inform the scientific community and overall MSR stakeholders, to make the infrastructure studies and trade-off more understandable; on the other hand, to solicit feedback from a larger community audience for the next iterations planning for SRF design and activities.

Mars Sample Return↗

Effective organizational solutions for implementation of DBMS software packages

The space telescope management information system development effort is a guideline for discussing effective organizational solutions used in implementing DBMS software. Focus is on the importance of strategic planning. The value of constructing an information system architecture to conform to the organization's managerial needs, the need for a senior decision maker, dealing with shifting user requirements, and the establishment of a reliable working relationship with the DBMS vendor are examined. Requirements for a schedule to demonstrate progress against a defined timeline and the importance of continued monitoring for production software control, production data control, and software enhancements are also discussed.

Jones, D.↗

Wavelength division multiplexing for future Space Station data systems

A future Space Station will require information network architectures and technologies that are evolvable, adaptive, high performing, and self-correcting and repairing. One of the conceptual network configurations involves fiber optic data buses with Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM). Discussion of this network concept, components being developed and results on a four-channel WDM star bus will be presented.

Hendricks, H. D.↗

Computer Sciences and Data Systems, volume 2

Topics addressed include: data storage; information network architecture; VHSIC technology; fiber optics; laser applications; distributed processing; spaceborne optical disk controller; massively parallel processors; and advanced digital SAR processors.

Source record↗

The 1990 Reference Handbook: Earth Observing System

An overview of the Earth Observing System (EOS) including goals and requirements is given. Its role in the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the International--Biosphere Program is addressed. The EOS mission requirements, science, fellowship program, data and information systems architecture, data policy, space measurement, and mission elements are presented along with the management of EOS. Descriptions of the facility instruments, instrument investigations, and interdisciplinary investigations are also present. The role of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the mission is mentioned.

Source record↗

Flight elements subpanel introduction and overview

Major objectives, milestones, key contacts, technology issues, accomplishments, and candidate programs are outlined. Topics addressed include: advanced avionics systems architectures; advanced information processing; avionics concepts; integrated Global Positioning System/guidance, navigation, and command concepts; advanced communication and telemetry; display and control concepts; advanced sensors and instrumentation; fault detection and fault management; advanced electric power, distribution, and control; EMA/power systems; and in-flight crew training. This presentation is represented by viewgraphs only.

Sollock, Paul E.↗

Deep space telecommunications, navigation, and information management - Support of the Space Exploration Initiative

The principal challenges in providing effective deep space navigation, telecommunications, and information management architectures and designs for Mars exploration support are presented. The fundamental objectives are to provide the mission with the means to monitor and control mission elements, obtain science, navigation, and engineering data, compute state vectors and navigate, and to move these data efficiently and automatically between mission nodes for timely analysis and decision making. New requirements are summarized, and related issues and challenges including the robust connectivity for manned and robotic links, are identified. Enabling strategies are discussed, and candidate architectures and driving technologies are described.

Hall, Justin R.↗