Development of the Mission Operations Support Tool (MOST)

Abstract

The Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory (HSFL) was established at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2007 and is developing a launch vehicle and satellites. The second HSFL launch, scheduled for 2012, is STU-2, which includes a spacecraft being designed and built by the HSFL. Control of the HSFL missions will be done in the HSFL Mission Operations Center located on the University of Hawaii campus at Manoa. HSFL, in collaboration with NASA Ames Research Center and Santa Clara University, is developing a comprehensive openarchitecture space mission operations system (COSMOS) to support this and future space missions. The major software tool of COSMOS, which is intended to provide real-time monitoring and control of spacecraft, is the Mission Operations Support Tool (MOST). This tool is based on the software tool LUNOPS which was designed for and used in support of science mission operations of the Clementine lunar mission in 1994. LUNOPS enabled the flight controllers to monitor the status of the spacecraft in accomplishing its science mission. MOST is building on this concept to allow not only monitoring of the spacecraft status, but also to provide a capability for issuing commands to the spacecraft and to be used in simulations, training and rehearsals, engineering data trending and archiving, and for anomaly resolution. The design goal for MOST is to create a single tool that can tie multiple data streams together with multiple end users. Toward this end, MOST is being designed to accept data inputs from multiple sources; while at the same time supporting multiple display configurations. On the data end, it can retrieve time stamped data records either from disk, or over established network protocols. These data can be archival, or real time; in the past, or in the future; real or simulated. MOST is capable of following data in real time, or tracking backwards and forwards in time. MOST supports one main overview screen, with summary data that is relevant to all users, plus multiple secondary screens designed for various support and subsystem tasks. The main display is always present, while the secondary screens can be displayed and dismissed at will. From the perspective of Mission Operations, this design allows each support specialty to hand tailor the display to their needs, while still maintaining access to all other information. From the perspective of monitoring and troubleshooting, the access to archival data allows studies of the interactions of different subsystems over time. MOST also provides a background monitoring mode that allows “lights-out” operation that will inform members of the operations team when an anomaly has been detected. Finally, the ability to work with simulated data allows the creation of virtual missions, for training, and support for forward looking for Mission Planning and testing.