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Completed TRL 7 (started at 2, targeting 9)
Enabling Capabilities special project series: Polaris Project, small flight experiments or risk reduction projects to fulfill high-priority capabilities gaps.
Project Description & Objectives
The Data Planning and Control (DPAC) Tool provides generic automated mission operations capable of responding to dynamic mission operations, such as those often encountered with to crew-tended payload operations or payload operations on crewed or uncrewed vehicles. Designed to accommodate a variety of mission systems, the DPAC tool provides a generic operations capability that can be integrated into a mission architecture with minimal additional development. DPAC focuses on easy integration with mission planning systems, a robust mission activity scheduling and management system, interfaces to external command and telemetry systems, a command scripting system, and a Command and Telemetry Test Tool. While developed and deployable as independent capabilities, the fully integrated suite offers the user end-to-end automated spacecraft ground operations.
Originally intended for use at the Payload Operations Integration Center for the International Space Station, this tool is also fully capable of integrating into other mission ground systems. The heart of the tool is the Planning Automation Service (PAS). PAS can receive mission planning activities using generic mission planning interfaces, sorts and schedules mission activities in a user-friendly interface, and then provides that activity information to external mission command and telemetry interfaces for execution. Users may view, add, remove, and modify planned activities. The system also allows different activities to execute at one of three levels of automation: manual mode where the activity is automatically executed immediately once authorized by an operator, semi-automatic where the activity is reviewed by an operator ahead of time and then authorized for automated execution in the future, and fully-automatic where the activity is automatically executed without prior operator reviewed. Different activities may call for different levels of oversight and pre-coordination, particularly when dealing with the dynamic schedules NASA often encounter in crewed missions. The PAS service is fully ready to provide maximum flexibility and control while still automating the actual execution of activities themselves. PAS is also a key component in the Huntsville Operations Support Center’s (HOSC) automate ground system operations such as the scheduling of connections to NASA’s Deep Space Network or commercial ground stations.
DPAC’s command and telemetry system interfaces, automated command scripts (called Ground Command Scripts (GCS), and GCS execution interface provide the tools to develop and execute spacecraft command sequences, read spacecraft telemetry, and verify successful activity execution. While developed for the International Space Station and it’s CCSDS format commanding system, it is easily adapted to other mission architectures and concepts. The Command and Telemetry Test Tool is a capability specific to the Enhanced HOSC Systems (EHS) ground command and telemetry system that allows users to simulate telemetry values in a defined sequence, thus providing a robust testing tool to validate GCS execution, command packet contents, and other EHS command and telemetry system applications.
This project was completed in September 2023 and future development and sustainment is being conducted at Marshall Space Fight Center in the Payload Mission Operations Division.
Alignment
The proposal benefits the following unfunded HEOMD Gaps:
Technology infusion & innovation approach
The Data Planning And Control (DPAC) tool will automate planning by merging telemetry, flight control, and procedures into a seamless operational interface for the Data Systems Ground Operators. DPAC will reduce operator workload, lower the risk for human errors, reduce training time, enable new/more flexible mission operations concepts, and provide modular interfaces for quick adaptation by other programs such as Gateway, Lunar Surface Ops, independent science missions, and other NASA partnership missions. The Payload Mission Operations Division at Marshall Space Flight Center has deployed elements of the DPAC’s Planning Automation Service (PAS), flight task automation scripts, and the Command and Telemetry Test tools for use in operations to operations in 2024 in support of the International Space Station program and other HOSC mission operations. Some ISS-specific implementations of the DPAC functionality are on long-term hold until ISS systematic planning challenges and operations constraints can be eliminated.
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