The Mars Pathfinder mission illustrated the benefits of including a mobile robotic explorer on a planetary mission. However, for future Mars rover missions, significantly increased autonomy in navigation is required in order to meet demanding mission criteria. To address these requirements, we have developed new path planning and localisation capabilities that allow a rover to navigate robustly...

Real-time AI is gaining increasing attention for applications in which conventional software methods are unable to meet technology needs. One such application area is the monitoring and analysis of complex systems. MARVEL (multimission automation for real-time verification of spacecraft engineering link), a distributed monitoring and analysis tool with multiple expert systems, was developed and...

In this paper we describe the use of our planning and scheduling framework, HSTS, to support science mission planning. This work is part of an overall project to enable a small team of scientists to control the operations of a spacecraft. The present process is essentially carried out by human operators. Users (scientists and operators) rely on a non-codified understanding of the different spac...

-­ The NASA Real Time Mission Monitor (RTMM) is a situational awareness decision-support tool that integrates real time aircraft tracks, aircraft waypoints, satellite imagery, radar products, surface observations, model output parameters and airborne remote sensing variables in an easy to use and view web-based application. RTMM optimizes real time decision-making for mission scientists, pil...

Spacely Sprockets (a pseudonym) specializes in the manufacture of aerospace products. The corporate mission of Spacely Sprockets is simply “client success”, which drives the expectation that every product must work the first time, every time. Spacely Sprockets relies on accurate application of torque when tightening mechanical fasteners during the manufacturing process. Torque is a twisting for...

In addition to correctness requirements, a real-time system must also meet its temporal constraints, often expressed as deadlines. We call safety or mission critical real-time systems which may miss some deadlines critical soft real-time systems to distinguish them from hard real-time systems, where all deadlines must be met, and from soft real-time systems which are not safety or mission criti...

Mission performance is likely to be high when organizational structures are “congruent” with the mission and degraded when organizational structures are “incongruent” with the mission. All else being equal, it is to an organization’s advantage to monitor the fit between its structure and mission, and to alter its structure when a misfit is identified. We afforded teams the opportunity to adapt ...

To meet its objective of reducing operations costs without incurring a corresponding increase in risk, NASA is seeking new methods to automate mission operations. This paper examines the state of the art in automating ground operations for space missions. A summary of available technologies and methods for automating mission operations is provided. Responses from interviews with several space m...