SEIS: a decision support system for optimizing spacecraft operations strategies

Abstract

Keeping 123 the spacecraft (S/C) healthy and productive is the responsibility and the main concern of the S/C flight control team (FCT). Space weather includes effects and conditions that favour the aging of a S/C and its instruments, e.g. degradation of sensors and solar arrays by charged particles and single event upsets (SEU). It is worth to stress out that it is hard to detect when the environmental conditions of a S/C are safe and when they are hazardous. So far, the most widely used approach of a FCT to counteract these effects has been to play safe. Playing safe, i.e. invoking counter measures early enough and keeping them for a long enough period, is a means to reduce the risk, but it is not the most efficient one. The dynamics of space weather could lead to situations where the instruments are shielded hours before the conditions become really hazardous. On the other hand it might happen that the FCT assumes safe conditions long before they actually are. single source, facilitates the analysis of this data therefore enhancing user awareness of space weather effects and possible cause-effect relationships between space weather events and S/C anomalous conditions.The system provides an interface to external applications to include data produced by physical models for the space environment and its effects. Furthermore, trained artificial neural networks or other plug-in tools can access all the data and produce forecasts for certain parameters. These forecasts can be fed back into the data-warehouse and be used for monitoring, analysis and operations planning.The reference mission for SEIS is INTEGRAL, ESA's gamma ray observatory. It also includes data from other ESA missions: ENVISAT and XMM. The main objective for INTEGRAL is to maximize the payload instruments' time while operating in safe condition, resulting in an increase of the S/C's productivity.The system is a prototype whose objective is the proof of concept for new emerging technologies applicable to the mission operations domain, increasing the quality and effectiveness of mission operations management.The paper presents the system, focusing on the application of the new technologies to support the FCT in their critical decision making process and its expected impact in the INTEGRAL's operations strategy.

Extraction and Transformation of Data From Semi-Structured Text Files Using a Declarative Approach

“…The Space Environment Support System (SESS) (ESA, 2006) is a multi-mission decision support system, capable of providing near real-time monitoring (Moura-Pires, Pantoquilho et al, 2004) and visualization, in addition to historical analysis (Pantoquilho, Viana et al, 2005) of S/W and S/C data, events and alarms. The main goal of the system is to provide S/C and S/W data integration.…”

XML based Metadata Repository for Information Systems

“…A specifically designed ETL component downloads this data from the Internet, transforming and loading it into a Data Warehouse, as well as an Operational Data Store. Two client tools are available: one for real time monitoring purposes (Monitoring Tool) [11] and other for offline analysis purposes (Reporting & Analysis Tool) [12], which uses the Data Marts.…”

Aspect-Oriented Analysis Applied to the Space Domain

“…The advantages of a repository for storing metadata were already assessed in the scope of the Space Environment Information System for Mission Control Purposes (SEIS) project (M. Pantoquilho, 2004). However, the hybrid combination of the two technologies (aspect methodology and metadata repository) as proposed in the ASSD project was never attempted.…”