Developing Responsive and Agile Space Systems - Space-Library

Architecture
Principle
Utility
Interoperability
Flexibility
Adaptability
Agility
Definition
• The measure of usefulness
of a capability provided to a
customer (measure of
benefit)
• The ability of two or more
systems to exchange and
mutually use information
• The ease with which one
can alter the architecture
to include a capability to
perform a new or unanticipated
requirement without
adding a component
• The ability to add a new
capability component to
the architecture to perform
a new or unanticipated
requirement
• Measure of ability to make
required changes to an
architecture
Some of the principles and definitions necessary of responsive space and their link to actions. Utility, interoperability,
flexibility, adaptability, and agility are just some of the factors that must be considered.
common infrastructure and services. Because
of the standard way satellite information
is both represented and transported,
space and ground situational awareness is
enabled across all centers and missions in
the enterprise.
Common Command and Control
Services
A look at a typical satellite operations
cycle in the satellite operations center at
Schriever Air Force Base illustrates the
potential advantages of a command and
control framework with a standard communications
infrastructure and services. The
satellite operations centers generate requests
for AFSCN antenna services to mission
planning personnel at Schriever Air Force
Base generally two weeks before the required
satellite contacts. The mission planning
personnel perform the orbit management
and mission scheduling function. To
support this process, a cycle of information
is needed to feed the orbit management,
mission scheduling, and real-time satellite
contact execution process. One portion of
this information cycle is illustrated in the
following steps:
Actions
• Fully understand the capability
needed (not solution preferred)
• Focus on user requirements that
flow from needed capability
(e.g., on call deployment)
• Adopt and implement common
standards
• Establish common requirements
with mission partners
• Adopt and implement common
standards
• Leverage research and technology
• Investigate novel concept of
operations for current systems
• Adopt and implement common
standards
• Leverage research and technology
• Look at commercial applications
• Break down barriers to agility
(e.g., processes, authorities, etc.)
1. Each day during satellite contacts,
AFSCN tracking stations produce
tracking data that is delivered to the
satellite operations center. The telemetry
and commanding software systems in
the operations center receive the data
and pass them to the orbit management
systems in each operations center.
2. Operations personnel responsible for orbit
management periodically determine
satellite ephemeris from tracking data
collected over several satellite contacts to
predict when the tracking stations will
be able to view the satellites two weeks
into the future. From this prediction,
calculated antenna look angles are also
created for future AFSCN service opportunities.
3. Operations personnel responsible for
mission scheduling employ satellite
visibility information as well as other
resource information to assign specific
satellite supports to remote tracking
stations in the future. The results are
reviewed by the satellite operators and
reconciled against an established priority
scheme to generate an overall schedule
for satellite supports. The resulting
schedule is sent to the satellite operation
centers and the assigned remote
tracking stations. Specific contact support
plans and operational crew assignments
are developed.
In a compatible command and control
framework, the same satellite tracking information
going from the AFSCN to the
satellite operation center’s standard communications
infrastructure would be published
by the infrastructure using a standard
message format. The information would
be subscribed to by an orbit management
service that also publishes its information to
the bus. A mission scheduling service could
subscribe to that information to create its
candidate resource requests and coordinate
the schedule with the AFSCN planning
and scheduling organization, which is also
connected to the satellite operations center
communications infrastructure to adjudicate
contention of resources. Once the
AFSCN allocates resources, the mission
scheduling service publishes the contact
schedules and associated instructions to
be passed to the operational crews that
will execute the satellite contacts on shift.
As shared orbit management and mission
scheduling services become more efficient
and automated, the number of operations
personnel can be reduced.
The power of using a standard communications
infrastructure and shared services
becomes clearer as other satellite systems
are added. The next satellite mission will
need only to publish its information—in
this case, satellite-tracking information—
using the same message and data standards.
It does not need to develop its own services.
Enabling Situational Awareness
Another advantage of the command and
control framework is that all satellite applications
have access to the same information
traveling through the infrastructure. This
enables situational awareness of operations
in real time. Publishing data across
all satellite operations centers and satellite
programs on the standard communications
infrastructure augments development of
value-added applications that are not easily
created in today’s stovepipe environment.
As an example, telemetry made available
in a standard form from all satellites can be
used to build applications that identify the
effects of space weather across the entire
space environment. For national security,
other applications could provide national
leaders with indications of space attacks
and assessments of national space mission
status in real time during times of conflict.
Crosslink Summer 2009 • 27