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

Abstract

Administration (NASA) is embarking on a new era of Space Exploration, aimed at sending crewed 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 paradi,ms 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, radio blackouts, equipment failures, or other unexpected 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 without dependence on the ground. We refer to this concept as "autonomy." Environments that require hi& levels of autonomy include the cockpits of .future spacecraft such as the Mars Exploratiun 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 WI operational implementation of onboard System Health Management, Mission Planninglre-planning, Autonomous TasldCommand 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 0%-nominal task execution based on human input or integrated health state-derived conditions. Shifting from Systems to hlission Management functions, we discuss the role of automated planning applications (tactical planning) on-board, which receive data &om the other cockpit automation systems and evaluate the mission plan against the dynamic systems and mission states and events, to provide the crew with capabilities that enable them to understand, change, and m a g e the timeiine of the& mission. Lastly, we discuss @e role of advanced human interiace technologies that organize and provide the system m d mission infomation to the crew in ways that maximize their situational awareness and ability to provide oversight and control of aLl the automated data and functions.