Abstract
This paper describes an evolution from a traditional satellite commanding interface control document (ICD) to a service suite which provides real-time propagation and validation of interface changes. TEL handling, elucidation, modification, and investigation service (THEMIS) is the DigitalGlobe next-generation software suite which provides runtime validation of satellite tasking built by mission planning systems and spacecraft engineers. It enables more efficient management of multiple baselines and changes through the lifecycle of a constellation mission. Through THEMIS, developers, spacecraft engineers, and system engineers view, edit, and manage revisions of the spacecraft tasking interface. The interface specification is represented in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format and configuration management is provided through a GitHub repository. Once generated, the ICDs are used in real-time operations. This approach has reduced interface interpretation errors by having a single service able to validate commanding generated by multiple sources against any interface baseline.
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Abbreviations
- API:
-
Application programming interface
- CI/CD:
-
Continuous integration, continuous delivery
- CP:
-
Collection planning: constellation-wide image planning software
- DAF:
-
Direct access facility
- DG:
-
DigitalGlobe
- Effectivity:
-
Time/version correlated ICD document
- ICD:
-
Interface control document
- JSON:
-
JavaScript object notation
- LEOP:
-
Launch and early operations
- MCS:
-
Mission control system
- MPS:
-
Mission planning system
- OE:
-
Operations engineer
- REST:
-
Represenational state transfer
- SCEng:
-
Spacecraft engineering
- SOA:
-
Service-oriented architecture
- TEL:
-
Tasked event list
- THEMIS:
-
TEL handling, elucidation, modification, and investigation service; software service suite addressing TEL ICD management
- UI:
-
User interface
References
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Gal-Edd, J., Kreisler, S., Fatig, C., & Jones, R. (2008). XTCE and XML database evolution and lessons from JWST, LandSat, and constellation. In SpaceOps 2008 Conference. Heidelberg, Germany.
XML Telemetric & Command ExchangeFormat Specification Version 1.1, formal/2008-03-01, Object Management Group, 2008.
Wierzbinski, M., Waters, M., & Upham, J. On the road to ground systems that scale for the future. In 21st Annual Ground System Architecture Workshop Conference. Los Angeles.
Acknowledgements
All of this work was part of the direct research and development carried out at DigitalGlobe Inc., now part of MAXAR Technologies. We would like to thank all of our MAXAR Technologies co-workers for providing lessons learned and operational feedback involving the architecture, implementation, and operations of the multi-mission ground system.
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Brenner, E., Bolton, R., Ostrum, C., Marquis Gacy, A. (2019). The Evolution of Interface Specification for Spacecraft Command and Control. In: Pasquier, H., Cruzen, C., Schmidhuber, M., Lee, Y. (eds) Space Operations: Inspiring Humankind's Future. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11536-4_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11536-4_8
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