Architecting a software architect
The objective of this paper is to describe the structure of the SWAP, the program's background, how the program has evolved, and the lessons learned from the implementation of this educational program.
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The objective of this paper is to describe the structure of the SWAP, the program's background, how the program has evolved, and the lessons learned from the implementation of this educational program.
Presentation reviews: (1) What is Architecting, (2) Constellation "Architecture", (3) Human Exploration Architecture (HEFT) Architecting Effort, (4) Forward work in Human Spaceflight Architecting
Architecting complex systems requires high-level cognitive processing and extensive knowledge of the system elements, functions, relationships, and constraints. This paper describes a systems architecting methodology implemented through cognitive psychological creative processes using Bloom’s taxonomy as a framework to generate the expert knowledge required to effectively and systematically synthesize new systems. Systems architecting activities were carried out to identify, develop, and capture factual and conceptual knowledge relevant to the system subject matter and functional elements, as well as to facilitate active processing of the knowledge through remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Dual channel and limited capacity principles of learning were incorporated into the format of the systems engineering tools developed to assist with information processing and retention. Meta-cognitive strategies associated with memory and creative idea generation were implemented into the methodology to effectively and efficiently develop system alternatives using the full collection of knowledge. Synthesis of an orbiting sample capture and orientation system architecture to enable spacecraft-based on orbit capture of a Mars sample container for a potential Mars Sample Return campaign was used as a case study.
A model-based systems engineering (MBSE) approach was applied to architecting an orbiting sample Capture and Orient Module (COM) system concept for a Capture, Contain, and Return System (CCRS) payload concept for the notional Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. An architecture framework was established, covering multiple organizational layers of the system, along with structural, behavioral, data, and requirements perspectives. A workflow process to implement the architecting activities within the COM engineering team was established. The approach helped maintain consistency in terminology, helped ensure alignment of structural, behavioral, data, and requirements elements within each organization layer, and guided the engineering team through an architecting process that helped develop the architecture for a Capture and Orient Module system concept.
The definition of the Space Mission Architect (SMA) must be clear in both technical and human terms if we expect to train and/or to find people needed to architect the numbers of smaller missions expected in the future.
This paper discusses the fundamentals of architecting a major human spaceflight program and the lessons that can be learned from Constellation. Constellation is/was NASA's program to implement a new generation of human exploration missions to the moon and beyond. It is/was a tightly-coupled program where a unique set of architectural challenges can be seen and evaluated to better understand how architecting of such systems can be improved upon in the future. While the specific issues discussed in this paper derive from the current Constellation architecture they share threads with previously-crewed systems including Apollo and Shuttle and are likely to be common to any human exploration system or system of significant technical and programmatic complexity.
In the international standards for architecture descriptions in systems and software engineering (ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010), "concern" is a primary concept that often manifests itself in relation to the quality attributes or "ilities" that a system is expected to exhibit - qualities such as reliability, security and modifiability. One of the main uses of an architecture description is to serve as a basis for analyzing how well the architecture achieves its quality attributes, and that requires architects to be as precise as possible about what they mean in claiming, for example, that an architecture supports "modifiability." This paper describes a table, generated by NASA's Software Architecture Review Board, which lists fourteen key quality attributes, identifies different important aspects of each quality attribute and considers each aspect in terms of requirements, rationale, evidence, and tactics to achieve the aspect. This quality attribute table is intended to serve as a guide to software architects, software developers, and software architecture reviewers in the domain of mission-critical real-time embedded systems, such as space mission flight software.
The Air Traffic Management (ATM) TestBed is a Platform as a Service that is being developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to help design, configure, integrate, run, and monitor air traffic simulations. The platform provides cloud services including back-end big-data analytics tools, on-demand computing resource management, data storage, and communication middleware. The ATM TestBed reduces the time to test concepts and technologies, supports interactions among various concepts such as human-in-the-loop and automation-in-the-loop simulations, and enables collaborative simulations by sharing technologies and tools in the ATM community. The Simulation Architect application provides a graphical user interface tool for designing traffic scenarios and simulations using blocks representing components and links representing message channels linking them. This guide describes a high-level user interface design of Simulation Architect and provides information for a new user to compose traffic scenarios and simulations.
Bacterial life exists on earth in extreme environments. These are environments described by large temperature excur- sions, large pressure excursions, and large radiation excursions from the nominal conditions near sea level which are largely populated by humans. These extreme locales represent such places as the ocean ice, the briny pools of Death Valley and deep mines, the acidic hot springs of the High Sierra or Yellowstone, or even the clouds of our upper atmosphere. The preponderance of bacterial life in these extreme environments here on earth suggests that bacterial life might likely exist in the extreme environments of our own solar system, such as the icy moons of Europa or Enceladus. Thus, architecting instruments for detect- ing life in these extreme environments on earth builds confidence that we can architect such instruments for flight missions. In this paper, we discuss our experience with designing digital holo- graphic microscope instruments to enable detection of bacteria in several extreme environments. In particular we discuss three different instruments. The first is our field instrument which is a small, portable instrument for examination of remote sites. The second is submersible instrument which enables exploration of deep aquatic environments and is deployed on a ocean-going drone. The third is a balloon-borne instrument to examine the bacterial content of the upper atmosphere. We will provide a review of each instrument and discuss aspects of instrument engineering for each particular application.
Langley Research Center's need for an improved construction specification system led to an automated system called SPECSINTACT. A catalog of specifications, the system enables designers to retrieve relevant sections from computer storage and modify them as needed. SPECSINTACT has also been adopted by government agencies. The system is an integral part of the Construction Criteria Base (CCB), a single disc containing design and construction information for 10 government agencies including the American Institute of Architects' MASTERSPEC. CCB employs CD- ROM technologies and is available from the National Institute of Building Sciences. Users report substantial savings in time and productivity.
NASA is planning a series of short and long duration human and robotic missions to explore the Moon and then Mars. A key objective of the missions is to grow, through a series of launches, a system of systems communication, navigation, and timing infrastructure at minimum cost while providing a network-centric infrastructure that maximizes the exploration capabilities and science return. There is a strong need to use architecting processes in the mission pre-formulation stage to describe the systems, interfaces, and interoperability needed to implement multiple space communication systems that are deployed over time, yet support interoperability with each deployment phase and with 20 years of legacy systems. In this paper we present a process for defining the architecture of the communications, navigation, and networks needed to support future space explorers with the best adaptable and evolable network-centric space exploration infrastructure. The process steps presented are: 1) Architecture decomposition, 2) Defining mission systems and their interfaces, 3) Developing the communication, navigation, networking architecture, and 4) Integrating systems, operational and technical views and viewpoints. We demonstrate the process through the architecture development of the communication network for upcoming NASA space exploration missions.
The next generation of missions in NASA's Human Space Flight program focuses on the development and deployment of highly complex systems (e.g., Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, Space Launch System, 21st Century Ground System) that will enable astronauts to venture beyond low Earth orbit and explore the moon, near-Earth asteroids, and beyond. Architecting these highly complex system-of-systems requires formal systems engineering techniques for managing the evolution of the technical features in the information exchange domain (e.g., data exchanges, communication networks, ground software) and also, formal correlation of the technical architecture to stakeholders' programmatic concerns (e.g., budget, schedule, risk) and design development (e.g., assumptions, constraints, trades, tracking of unknowns). This paper will describe how the authors have applied System Modeling Language (SysML) to implement model-based systems engineering for managing the description of the End-to-End Information System (EEIS) architecture and associated development activities and ultimately enables stakeholders to understand, reason, and answer questions about the EEIS under design for proposed lunar Exploration Missions 1 and 2 (EM-1 and EM-2).
The aviation literature gives relatively little guidance to practitioners about the specifics of architecting systems for safety, particularly the impact of architecture on allocating safety requirements, or the relative ease of system assurance resulting from system or subsystem level architectural choices. As an exemplar, this paper considers common architectural patterns used within traditional aviation systems and explores their safety and safety assurance implications when applied in the context of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) based functionality. Considering safety as an architectural property, we discuss both the allocation of safety requirements and the architectural trade-offs involved early in the design lifecycle. This approach could be extended to other assured properties, similar to safety, such as security. We conclude with a discussion of the safety considerations that emerge in the context of candidate architectural patterns that have been proposed in the recent literature for enabling autonomy capabilities by integrating AI and ML. A recommendation is made for the generation of a property-driven architectural pattern catalogue.
The aviation literature gives relatively little guidance to practitioners about the specifics of architecting systems for safety, particularly the impact of architecture on allocating safety requirements, or the relative ease of system assurance resulting from system or subsystem level architectural choices. As an exemplar, this paper considers common architectural patterns used within traditional aviation systems and explores their safety and safety assurance implications when applied in the context of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) based functionality. Considering safety as an architectural property, we discuss both the allocation of safety requirements and the architectural trade-offs involved early in the design lifecycle. This approach could be extended to other assured properties, similar to safety, such as security. We conclude with a discussion of the safety considerations that emerge in the context of candidate architectural patterns that have been proposed in the recent literature for enabling autonomy capabilities by integrating AI and ML. A recommendation is made for the generation of a property-driven architectural pattern catalogue.
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Future Mars missions require planning years in advance. In order to make these missions affordable while reducing mission risk, technology developments should be structured to satisfy the needs of future missions.
Disinfection and maintenance of an acceptable level of asepsis in spacecraft potable water delivery systems is a formidable task. The major area of research for this project has been to monitor the formation and growth of biofilm, and biofilm attached microorganisms, on stainless steel surfaces (specifically coupons), and the use of ozone for the elimination of these species in a closed loop system. A number of different techniques have been utilized during the course of a typical run. Scraping and sonication of coupon surfaces with subsequent plating as well as epifluorescence microscopy have been utilized to enumerate biofilm protected Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In addition, scanning electron microscopy is the method of choice to examine the integrity of the biofilm. For ozone determinations, the indigo decolorization spectrophotometric method seems most reliable. Both high- and low-nutrient cultured P. aeruginosa organisms were the target species for the ozone disinfection experiments.
The present status of NASA's Lunar Observer study effort at JPL is discussed in the context of an ongoing 20-year series of studies focused on defining a robotic, low-altitude, polar-orbiting mission to the moon. The primary emphasis of the discussion is a review of the various systems-level factors that drive the overall architecture of the mission plan. Selected top-level project and science requirements are summarized and the current mission and science objectives are presented. A brief description of the candidate science instrument complement is included. Several significant orbital effects caused by the lunar gravity field are explained and the variety of trajectory and maneuver options considered for both getting to the moon and orbiting there are described. Several candidate mission architectures are outlined and the mission plans chosen for future study are described. Two mission options result: a single-spacecraft, single-launch scenario, and a multiple-spacecraft, multiple-launch concept.