Mission Planning in a Web Environment SpaceOps 2002

1
Mission Planning in a Web EnvironmentSpaceOps
2002

• by German Zoeschinger,
• Rolf Pohmann, Armin Braun Martin Wickler
• DLR/GSOC Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany

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Mission Planning Scope

• What is done through Mission Planning?
• develop a timeline (schedule, plan) for all
  (on-board) activities considering
• user requirements (activity definitions, data
  take requests)
• resource availabilities (e.g. energy budget,
  communication links)
• system constraints and planning rules
• Mission Planning is complex and tends to be
• an operator intensive task
• requiring significant amount of time
• and producing considerable operations cost

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Motivation for Web Environment (I)

• Much effort has to be put into
• collecting planning requirements and constraints
• communicating planning results to the user and
  science community and the operations personnel
• Often not easy to match the users view of a
  planning problem with the planning systems view
  (how can a planning problem be represented
  adequately in a planning system?)
• It is desirable
• to automate the translation of the planning
  problem from the users view to the systems view
  and
• to standardize
• as much as reasonable but
• without compromising the quality of the planning
  product

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Motivation for Web Environment (II)

• Support the end user with an easy to use planning
  interface
• configured to meet the users problem domain
• Grant visibility into the planning data
• Enable access to all parties that are involved in
  the Mission Planning process
• Consider that environments of potential users
  might be very different in terms of electronic
  data processing
• Approach to use Web techniques has substantial
  advantages for the end user
• no dedicated software has to be installed on user
  side
• no special hardware is required
• user is already familiarized with software
  environment

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GSOC Planning System

• Well established and proven suite of tools
• Has been used in several space missions already
• Selective tools and appropriate concepts have
  also been successfully translated to industrial
  non-space projects
• Based on this working system the planning
  front-ends have been extended in a seamless
  transition to the Web

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GSOC Planning System / Functional Overview
GSOC MPS
Requester
Reqs (profiles)
Subtimelines, Resource Info, Envelopes
Requirements, Constraints, Availabilities
Profiles, Timelines
TIMON
View Timeline
System constraints
Central MissionPlanning Database
Receive Inputs
Generate Outputs
Req. Profiles
Resource envelopes
Events, Attitude info
Orbits info, Mission constraints
Subtimelines, Resource Info
ATLAS
Ops Reqs
Visualize Orbits Events
SePPL
Calculate Orbits Events
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Web-based Planning / Schematic Overview
Planning engine
User order
Planning info
Web i/f
Web i/f
Input
Planning _at_GSOC
Output
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GSOC Planning System, Core Overview

• ATLAS
• ground track visualization, orbit- and attitude
  dependent
• SePPL
• calculation of orbit- and attitude dependent
  events
• OrbL
• orbit generator
• PLATO
• automatic scheduling of activities
• PINTA
• interactive planning and replanning of a timeline
• Utils-Lib
• population of planning data base, reports and
  publishing

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Web Extension Planning Data Collection
ReqOnWeb(Overview)

• Web-based planning data collection system
  (ReqOnWeb) has been implemented and configured
  for a special satellite mission (BIRD)
• input of user planning requirements (activity
  definitions, data take requests)
• working directly on the Planning Data Base
• easy to adapt for specific project needs
• generating the activity models directly from the
  Web scripts
• Accompanying ground track visualization tool can
  support the user in defining data take requests
  in Earth observing missions (AtlasOnWeb)

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Web Extension Publishing TimOnWeb and
AtlasOnWeb(Overview)

• For communicating the planning results to the end
  user a Web display (TimOnWeb) has been
  implemented
• Supports piecewise downloading of data
• data for current display are downloaded first,
  remaining data are downloaded in background
• Progressive graphical displays
• displays are built up as the data arrive
• Delta-data transmissions
• after a new revision of a timeline only the data
  that have been changed are downloaded
• User notification, in case planning results have
  changed
• user is notified when a new timeline revision is
  published
• Ground track visualization tool (AtlasOnWeb) adds
  ground track plots to TimOnWeb displays used in
  Earth observing missions

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ReqOnWeb Sample ImplementationOverview Page
for Collecting Data Take Requests for Satellite
Mission BIRD
- ground track to support data take ordering -
order form - check all ordered data takes -
check currently planned data takes
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ReqOnWeb Sample Implementation BIRD Data Take
Order Form
User inputs that characterize the different
aspects of a data take are translated
automatically into an appropriate activity model
with resource usages that can seamlessly be used
by the planning system
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TimOnWeb and AtlasOnWeb Sample Displays
Overview page showing various projects for
demonstrating the versatility of TimOnWeb
With this page it is possible to launch TimOnWeb
with different timelines or timeline versions
with different display configurations or display
start times
It is also possible to launch AtlasOnWeb for
Earth observing projects (through column Ground
Track)
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TimOnWeb BIRD Demo Data Take Timeline
Showing 21 hours of a sample BIRD timeline with
two types of data takes (IR-sensors and WAOSS),
ground station contact times (GS NZ, GS WHM) and
how the on-board memory is changing due to data
takes and dumps (StatusOfMemory) The layout is
freely configurable Mouse clicks on the various
items reveal the underlying details of the
timeline Moving forward or backward in time or
move to current time is also possible
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TimOnWeb Demo BIRD Timeline
start/end times of orbit events
details of the planned activity or task including
resource usage and availability
arbitrary information can be linked to an
activity (e.g. crew or ground procedures)
option dialogue to enable checking for new
timeline versions and automatic scrolling useful
for monitoring a mission in real time
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AtlasOnWeb BIRD Preview Demo Page
This page demonstrates a simple use of
AtlasOnWeb It is possible to select different
satellites, to define the display area and to
specify start and stop times of the
plot AtlasOnWeb uses pre-defined configurations
of the underlying ATLAS application to define the
track parameters, like off-nadir roll angle,
swath width, attitude timelines...
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AtlasOnWeb ISS Visibility Prediction Service and
Ground Track Graphic
This example shows how AtlasOnWeb can be
integrated into Web pages that provide ISS
visibility predictions for a given location The
graphic displays a visible pass of the ISS,
calculated for an observer in Munich, Germany
the fat red line is showing the part of the orbit
where the ISS is visible for the observer
(12-Jul-2002 0357 to 0402 CEST) AtlasOnWeb is
called by the prediction pages of Heavens-Above
GmbH, www.heavens-above.com
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AtlasOnWeb X-SAR/SRTM Post Mission Coverage
These pages demonstrate another example for the
use of AtlasOnWeb the user interface and the
possi-bility to change parameters is quite
different but the underlying computing engine
(ATLAS) is unchanged
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Integrating TimOnWeb and AtlasOnWeb X-SAR/SRTM
Post Mission Coverage
The possibility of TimOnWeb to link arbitrary
information to activities or tasks can be used to
launch AtlasOnWeb directly from TimOnWeb, if the
activities represent data takes The parameters
that are used to control AtlasOnWeb (like start
and end times of the data take) are directly
derived from the data base through TimOnWeb
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Implementation Sketch of Planning Systems Web
Extensions

• TimOnWeb is coded in Java and runs as a Java
  Applet in a standard Web browser
• AtlasOnWeb uses RSIs ION script to access ATLAS
  application
• ATLAS is coded in RSIs IDL, FORTRAN and C
• Relational data base holding the planning data is
  accessed through Active Server Pages and through
  ATLAS

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Top Level Characteristics (I)

• Web front-ends are sitting on top of planning
  data base
• ensuring data integrity and
• completeness through user-specific forms and
  adequate translation code
• saves operator effort that is otherwise needed to
  transfer the planning data from and to the user
  domain
• collected planning data are compatible to the
  problem description understood by the planning
  system, since the Web front-ends mediate directly
  between the users and the planning systems view
  of the problem domain

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Top Level Characteristics (II)

• Provides insight into the planning process
• Allows to monitor the progress of the planning
  requests
• AtlasOnWeb uses the same computing engine as the
  original planning tool does
• only a small effort was necessary to implement
  the Web-extension and to enhance the potential of
  the tool
• Necessary for supporting complex replanning
  processes which are expected to be needed in
  long-lasting missions like TerraSAR-X and
  ISS/Columbus

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Current Use

• Instance of these Web-based extensions to the
  GSOC Planning System has been recently set up for
  the satellite mission BIRD
• Currently used successfully by the respective
  parties
• Demonstrates the potential of this approach and
  underlines the ease of adaptation of the system
  for a specific mission
• All operational experiences gained so far during
  the use of the system in a working context are
  closely analyzed and considered for further
  development
• Also used for non-space related applications

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Perspective

• Effort is put into expanding the GSOC Planning
  System to automate the planning process itself
• planning data collection and publishing the
  planning results is already widely independent of
  any Mission Planner intervention
• If the planning problem allows the planning
  process itself can be automated to a great extent
  using the automatic planning tool (PLATO) of the
  GSOC Planning System
• In this case the scope of the duties of a Mission
  Planner is reduced to configure the system for a
  mission and to supervise the proper application
  flow, which can contribute to saving operations
  cost