2004
Mission Planning and Execution Within the Mission Data System
ABSTRACT - Not only has the number of launched spacecraft per year exploded recently, but spacecraft are also getting progressively
more complex as flyby missions give way to remote orbiters, which in turn give way to rovers and other in situ explorers. To address
the software issues in this expanding mission set JPL started the Mission Data System (MDS) project -- an effort to make flight software
engineering more straightforward and less prone to error through the explicit modeling of spacecraft state. This paper presents how
MDS performs mission planning and execution in the context of explicitly managing spacecraft state.
International Workshop on Planning and Scheduling for Space.
Darmstadt, Germany.
June
Project Golden Gate: Toward Real Time Java in Space Missions
ABSTRACT - Planetary science missions, such as those that explore Mars and Saturn, employ a variety of spacecraft such as orbiters, landers,
probes, and rovers. Each of these kinds of spacecraft depend on embedded real-time control systems -- systems that are increasingly being
asked to do more as challenging new mission concepts are proposed. For both systems engineers and software engineers the large
challenges are in analysis, design, and verification of complex control systems that can run on relatively limited processors. Project
Golden Gate -- a collaboration among NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Sun Microsystems Laboratory, and Carnegie Mellon University--
is exploring those challenges in the context of real time Java applied to space mission software. This paper describes the problem
domain and our experimentation with the first commercial implementation of the Real Time Specification for Java. The two main
issues explored in this report are: (1) the effect of RTSJ's non-heap memory on the programming model, and (2) performance benchmarking
of RTSJ/Linux relative to C++/VxWorks.
IEEE Symposium on Object-Oriented Real Time Distributed Computing (ISORC'04).
Vienna, Austria.
May
Planning for V&V of the Mars Science Laboratory Rover Software
ABSTRACT - NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover mission is planning to make use of advanced software technologies in order to support fulfillment of its ambitious science objectives. The mission plans to adopt the Mission Data System (MDS) as the mission software architecture, and plans to make significant use of on-board autonomous capabilities (e.g., path planning, obstacle avoidance) for the rover software. The use of advanced software technologies embedded in an advanced mission software architecture represents a turning point in software for space missions. While prior flight experiments (notably the Deep Space One Remote Agent Experiment) have successfully demonstrated aspects of autonomy enabled by advanced software technologies, and MDS has been tested in ground experiments (e.g., on-earth tests on rover hardware), MSL will be the first science mission to rely on this combination. The success of the MSL mission is predicated upon our ability to adequately verify and validate the advanced software technologies, the MDS architectural elements, and the integrated system as a whole. Because MSL is proposing a shift from traditional approaches to flight software, approaches to verification and validation (V&V) require scrutiny to determine whether traditional methods are adequate, and where they need adjustment and/or augmentation to handle the new challenges. This paper presents a study of the V&V needs and opportunities associated with MSL's novel approach to mission software, and provides an assessment of V&V techniques, both current and emerging, vis-a-vis their adequacy and suitability for V&V of the MSL rover software.
IEEE Aerospace Conference.
Big Sky, MT.
March
Engineering Complex Embedded Systems with State Analysis and the Mission Data System
ABSTRACT - It has become clear that spacecraft system complexity is reaching a threshold where customary methods of control are no
longer affordable or sufficiently reliable. At the heart of this problem are the conventional approaches to systems and software
engineering based on subsystem-level functional decomposition, which fail to scale in the tangled web of interactions typically
encountered in complex spacecraft designs. Furthermore, there is a fundamental gap between the requirements on software specified
by systems engineers and the implementation of these requirements by software engineers. Software engineers must perform the
translation of requirements into software code, hoping to accurately capture the systems engineer's understanding of the system
behavior, which is not always explicitly specified. This gap opens up the possibility for misinterpretation of the systems
engineer's intent, potentially leading to software errors. This problem is addressed by a systems engineering methodology
called State Analysis which provides a process for capturing system and software requirements in the form of explicit models.
This paper describes how requirements for complex aerospace systems can be developed using State Analysis and how these
requirements inform the design of the system software, using representative spacecraft examples.
AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Conference.
Chicago, IL.
September
Generating Requirements for Complex Space Systems Using State Analysis
ABSTRACT - It has become clear that spacecraft system complexity is reaching a threshold where customary methods of control are no
longer affordable or sufficiently reliable. At the heart of this problem are the conventional approaches to systems and software
engineering based on subsystem-level functional decomposition, which fail to scale in the tangled web of interactions typically
encountered in complex spacecraft designs. Furthermore, there is a fundamental gap between the requirements on software specified
by systems engineers and the implementation of these requirements by software engineers. Software engineers must perform the
translation of requirements into software code, hoping to accurately capture the systems engineer's understanding of the system
behavior, which is not always explicitly specified. This gap opens up the possibility for misinterpretation of the systems
engineer's intent, potentially leading to software errors. This problem is addressed by a systems engineering methodology
called State Analysis which provides a process for capturing system and software requirements in the form of explicit models.
This paper describes how requirements for complex aerospace systems can be developed using State Analysis and how these
requirements inform the design of the system software, using representative spacecraft examples.
International Astronautical Federation Congress.
Vancouver, Canada.
October
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