Challenges Arising from Applications

Abstract

The Application: Health Maintenance for a Next-Gen Space Shuttle NASA is investigating automated and integrated technologies for monitoring the health of future space shuttles and their ground support equipment. This application .eld, known as Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM), is being developed in by the aerospace industry under the auspices of NASA’s Space Launch Initiative (SLI) program. The proposed IVHM system includes advanced software technologies such as model-based diagnosis using NASA’s Livingstone system. This holds the promise of automating the diagnosis across a number of subsystem components and possible scenarios that is not tractable for more conventional diagnosis techniques. On the .ip side, however, it also raises multiple technical challenges, both related to the diagnosis techniques themselves and to their veri.cation and validation (V&V) for fight qualification.