Lost-in-Translation: Towards a Database Standard Adoption

Abstract

The requirements for faster return-to-service time and higher data rates in space system design and operations have greatly contributed to a refocus on data and information models to ensure that Space and Ground segments can benefit from data representation standards or best practices in commercial IT industries. Collectively, the space industry members have come to a realization that cost and competitiveness can be in the design of the system operations, but not in the ground product data integration or data exchange processing. Data translation and integration is behind the scene. The space system users can only understand the benefit of a data standard compliance, when the information for every decision in the daily operations is represented correctly and provided in automation. When complicated data mining is a daily routine of operations in order to bring the system back to service, there is room for improvement. XML is the latest language widely recognized for its benefits, delivering metadata for Space Systems data integration. The XML Telemetry and Command Exchange (XTCE) Standard, by the Object Management Group (OMG)’s Space Domain Task Force (SDTF) and adopted by the CCSDS Spacecraft Monitor and Control Working Group, is a collaborated effort to evolve the space and ground software product development using XML technologies. XTCE provides an abstraction of common operational use database and metadata vocabulary. XTCE, an industry first effort, provides a set of vocabulary that is common to the space system operations. However, the expectations need to be managed. Technology insertion is only one of three key elements for mission assurance. People and processes are the other two key elements, as the James Webb Telescope project found out during its success in adopting the XTCE standard. Adopting XTCE is like learning a foreign language, first we learn the vocabulary. Once we recognize the word patterns and can map them to the meaning in our native languages, we then can be ready to associate the words with our intents. After that, we use the learned vocabulary and phrases for communicating messages and event status for appropriate actions. This presentation describes how the XTCE schema may have a bumpy ride to be adopted with commercial members in the industry. Like many other new standards, if the user communities are not aware of the benefits of XTCE, they do not request its compliance in contracts and the system integrators and subcontractors will not be interested in allocating investment in the adoption. What is the next step? Should OMG’s SDTF facilitate a broader user participation and collaboration opportunity to encourage the open standard adoption? Can the synergy be converged to ensure that the operational customers are not again lost in translation? Is the XTCE schema a stepping stone to a ground domain specific ontology standard?