Automating Flight Controller Functions for Exploration Missions
Debra L. Schreckenghost · 2005
Establishing a human presence in deep space will require a change in the way manned space operations is conducted. Due to long communication delays and the extended duration of missions, NASA can no longer rely on large Earth-based teams supporting astronauts round-the-clock. As a result, astronauts must become more self-sufficient and independent from ground-based support. To accomplish this, it is necessary to automate portions of Earth-based flight control in space. We have developed the Distributed Collaboration and Interaction (DCI) System to automate many functions which flight controllers do today, including (1) aid crew in maintaining situation awareness, (2) assist crew in managing activities, (3) perform systems health management, and (4) improve distributed team awareness. Additionally the DCI system provides operations assistance to achieve reliable, effective control automation. The DCI System has been evaluated by control engineers during extended duration ground tests at NASA’s JSC. DCI assists these engineers in performing duties associated with ground testing crew water recovery systems (WRS). These WRS ground tests operate for months at a time, and require engineers to be on-call and available to handle anomalies while performing their other duties, similar to the way crew will interact with the WRS. The DCI System enables effective distributed test operations and improved anomaly response from previous tests. Anomaly response time was reduced from up to 10 hours in previous tests to typically less than 1 hour (except when engineers forgot to turn on their pagers). In this paper we describe our concept of exploration operations with flight controller automation and discuss how the DCI System embodies that concept.