Collaborative Information Portal: MER and Beyond
Joan Walton, Ronald Mak, Leslie Keely · 2003
We describe the architecture and interface of the Collaborative Information Portal (CIP), a system that integrates operational and scientific information for managing the 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission. CIP displays schedules, notifies users of events and the arrival of scientific data products, displays the products, and facilitates team collaboration—all within the context of user-personalized access and interfaces. CIP is an Internet-enabled Java desktop application that connects via secure web services to a middleware based on Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) and a back end containing databases and meta-databases. The system is fully integrated with the current JPL/MER secure flight operations environment and has great potential for use on future planetary missions. Future missions that employ data repositories similar to those used on MER will be able to use CIP with minimal or no modifications. For non-MER type repositories, data integration modules can be written and easily plugged into the architecture without requiring changes to the middleware and client application components. Finally, the CIP architecture provides a basis upon which to build in additional features and functionality beyond the capabilities provided to MER.