Abstract
AbstractIn 1997, the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, now under the auspices of the United Launch Alliance (ULA), began with fundamental goals to reduce cost and improve the reliability of launching satellites and interplanetary spacecraft. With payloads costing more that several billion dollars each, the reliability of launch vehicles mandates perfect launches. Subsequently, launch systems have become highly complex with increasing launch rates of satellites to perform surveillance, network‐centric command and control, and communications on the land, sea, air and space. Launch system Ground Computers, Command and Control (GC3) has grown exponentially in software capabilities, collecting and displaying data to domain experts, and transmitting real‐time data to world‐wide support teams. Rapid and accurate anomaly resolution with customers and contractors, especially for events leading up to day‐of‐launch (DOL) involves hundreds of personnel using these complex systems. This paper describes near‐term capabilities which are the building blocks of future intelligent agents: decision making, knowledge management; computer systems, control software and desktop PC tools. These agents are rapidly maturing into integrated systems decision making processes that are responsive within seconds. This near‐term development activity is compared with a 20‐year forecast of spaceport intelligent agent systems.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
