Advanced Technologies for future spacecraft cockpits and space-based control centers

Paper number

IAC-06-D1.2.07

Author

Mr. Carlos Garcia-Galan, Honeywell Space Systems, United States

Year

2006

Abstract

NASA is embarking on a new era of Space Exploration, aimed at sending manned spacecraft beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO), in medium and long duration missions to the Lunar surface, Mars and beyond.    The challenges of such missions are significant and will require new technologies and paradigms in vehicle design and mission operations.  Current roles and responsibilities of spacecraft systems, crew and the flight control team, for example, may not be sustainable when real-time support is not assured, due to distance-induced communication lags, or other factors.  Therefore, technologies and applications that enable greater Systems and Mission Management capabilities on-board the space-based system will be necessary to reduce the dependency on real-time critical Earth-based support.  
The focus of this paper is in such technologies that will be required to bring advance Systems and Mission Management capabilities to space-based environments where the crew will be required to manage both the systems performance and mission execution.  These environments include the cockpits of future spacecraft such as the Mars Exploration Vehicle, and space-based control centers such as a Lunar Base Command and Control Center. Furthermore, this paper will evaluate the requirements, available technology, and roadmap to enable full operational implementation of on-board System Health Management, Mission Planning/re-planning, Autonomous Task/Command Execution, and Human Computer Interface applications.  
The technology topics covered by the paper include enabling technology to perform Intelligent Caution and Warning, where the systems provides directly actionable data for human understanding and response to failures, task automation applications that automate nominal and off-nominal task execution based on human input or integrated health state-derived conditions. Planning applications that receive data from the other cockpit automation systems and evaluate the mission plan and perform resource management for replanning, and all the above combined with advanced human interface technologies that organize and provide the information to the crew in ways that maximize their situational awareness and ability to provide oversight and control of all the automated data and functions.

Abstract document

IAC-06-D1.2.07.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-06-D1.2.07.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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