An EGS-CC based Core Control Segment

Transcription

1 SpaceOps Conferences 28 May - 1 June 2018, 2018, Marseille, France 2018 SpaceOps Conference / An EGS-CC based Core Control Segment M. Niezette 1 and D. Lucia 2 Telespazio VEGA Deutschland, Darmstadt, 64293, Germany The European Ground System Common Core (EGS-CC) will soon provide a common infrastructure to support space systems monitoring and control in pre- and post-launch phases. For several years, Telespazio VEGA has relied on a ground control segment infrastructure based on ESA SCOS-2000 and Telespazio VEGA components. This core control segment is now being extended and migrated to EGS-CC to align on the state-of-theart technology of the new monitoring and control infrastructure while ensuring the completeness of the control segment through the addition of operationally proven components. This paper presents the characteristics and benefits of the Telespazio VEGA core control segment and introduce the various components, focusing on their integration with EGS-CC. I. Nomenclature AND = Alphanumeric Display API = Application Programming Interface CDM = Conceptual Data Model CCSDS = Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems CoCS = Core Control Segment DAGS = Data Analytics for Ground Segment ECSS = European Cooperation for Space Standardization EGS-CC = European Ground System Common Core EO = Earth observation ESA = European Space Agency ESB = Enterprise Service Bus FDS = Flight Dynamics System M&C = Monitoring and Control MCM = Monitoring and Control Model MCS = Mission Control System MPAL = Mission Planning Adaptation Layer (MPAL) MPS = Mission Planning System OPE = Operation Preparation Environment OPEN = Open Preparation ENvironment PUS = Packet Utilization Standard S/C = Spacecraft SCOS = Spacecraft Control Operating System SLE = Space Link Extension SOLM = Spacecraft Operations Language Metamodel TC = Telecommand TM = Telemetry UI = User Interface VOP-PE = Telespazio VEGA Operations Tools Procedure Editor VPT = Telespazio VEGA Planning Toolkit VPT-E = Telespazio VEGA Planning Toolkit Earth observation 1 Head of Product Policy Management, Product Policy Office. 2 Head of Integration, Verification and Validation Section, Ground Segment Systems Division, Software Solution Department. 1 Copyright 2018 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.

2 II. I. Introduction HE European Ground System Common Core (EGS-CC) will soon provide a common infrastructure to support Tspace systems monitoring and control in pre- and post-launch phases. This initiative from the European Space Agency (ESA), in collaboration with European National Agencies and European Primes, aims at providing a generic monitoring and control functionality for all space systems including spacecraft, launchers, ground segment systems, and ground support equipment, in all mission phases and for all mission types. EGS-CC provides all the core elements of a spacecraft monitoring and control system, which after configuration and adaptation, are complemented by additional components to form an overall control segment for a space mission. For several years, Telespazio VEGA has relied on a ground control segment infrastructure based on ESA SCOS and Telespazio VEGA components. This infrastructure is a core system that can be easily customized, configured and deployed to support missions compliant with the ESA ECSS Packet Utilization Standard and the CCSDS Space Link Extension protocol, with a focus on Earth Observation. The core of the current SCOS-2000-based infrastructure includes three main components: a mission control system, a mission planning system, and an operations preparation environment. In addition, an operational simulator and a training system are provided for testing purpose and operator training. It provides the flexibility required to support the non-standard interfaces of the ground control segment, especially at the level of the programming chain for interaction with the user or payload data segment and the external ground station providers at management level. This core control segment is now being extended and migrated to EGS-CC to align on the state-of-the-art technology of the new monitoring and control infrastructure while ensuring the completeness of the control segment through the addition of operationally proven components. The objective is to provide a core system pre-configured to support the need of Earth observation missions, essentially in areas that are complementary to EGS-CC, such as the mission planning and flight dynamics. III. Core Control Infrastructure Fig. 1 depicts the elements of the Core Ground segment in which the Telespazio components complement EGS- CC. Fig. 1 Core Control Infrastructure Elements The new Telespazio VEGA core control segment includes: A mission control system based on the EGS-CC components, including all the available tools and extensions for the configuration of the system data, tailoring of the M&C definitions and deployment tools. Specific deployment configurations, covering the most common reference architectures and operational constraints, can be selected. Web-based user interface to the monitoring and control functions, capable to display the current state of the system on easily readable charts and ANDs, inspect historical data, visualize events in real-time, monitor the 2

3 progress of activity execution and, if deployed and enabled, provide the capability to request execution of activities, including dispatch of telecommands and execution of automated procedures. A mission planning system based on a newer release of the Telespazio VEGA planning toolkit, an infrastructure for mission planning system development including an application framework and a toolkit of planning algorithms that can be used to develop specific solutions. A core flight dynamics component, including the routines for basic orbit propagation and environmental assessment required for simple missions. An operations preparation environment based on ESA s Open Preparation ENvironment (OPEN) and on the Telespazio VEGA Operations Toolkit, which allows for the definition of automated procedures using a purely graphical environment, where the procedures are graphically shown and can be created by drag-anddrop of action blocks and graphical wiring. The environment natively supports the EGS-CC tailoring data definitions (CDM) and it allows the generation of EGS-CC Java-compliant procedures that can be imported into the running system. Alternatives components to the original EGS-CC distribution, aiming at small deployment (CoCS in a box) and improved performance: the archive and the file management components are implemented to provide a light-weight memory footprint. The functionalities to identify and decode TM packets, as well as message distribution, are re-implemented to provide increased performance with high-rate telemetry flows. A data analysis module, which presents a simple, yet powerful API: it allows the execution of algorithms on archived telemetry data and store the output in different formats. The results of the processing can be subsequently retrieved using a web-based interface. Algorithms are easily added to the data analysis module via the web-based user interface and validated for errors and consistency issues. The external interfaces to the component assembly are: The S/C Tailoring Data, which is a mandatory input for operations preparations, and for configuration of the MCS and the MPS. The Planning Requests, which can take various forms and are inputs to the MPS. Note that the MPS can also be run in a standalone configuration where either user enters directly the requests into the MPS, or where the routine planning is implemented via rules in the MPS database. The Plans that are produced by the MPS and made available to external entities if needed. The Orbit Data coming from the Ground Stations for supporting Flight Dynamics The TM and TC interfaces to the Ground Stations based on the SLE protocol implemented by the MCS. An interface to the MCS to provide Telemetry and get Telecommands from authorized external sources. The system heavily relies on standards for its external interfaces: The S/C Tailoring Data is expected in the EGS-CC compliant format (CDM Exchange Format) The TM and TC are compliant with the CCSDS standards The ground stations are interfaced via SLE IV. Mission Control System A. Mission Control Infrastructure The Mission Control System (MCS) of the Telespazio VEGA Core Control Segment is assembled using the European Ground Segment Common Core (EGS-CC) components. The main functionality of the MCS is to provide processing, dissemination and storage of housekeeping telemetry data and construction, release and progress monitoring of telecommands. The EGS-CC design is based on three functional layers: Components belonging to the EGS-CC Kernel layer provide infrastructure capabilities: start up and tear down of M&C sessions; access to operational files; access to configuration properties; routing, storage and acknowledge of messages; access to data definitions; processing of raw data; management of activities and control operations; routing, storage and access to raw data and processed data; execution of automation procedures and scripts; external access to data and services from an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Components belonging to the EGS-CC Reference Implementation layer provide a default implementation of the space communication protocols and processing, tightly coupled with the selected spacecraft and mission specification: telemetry frame reception and packet extraction, telemetry packet decoding, telecommand packet encoding, TC frame encapsulation, COP-1 implementation, optional support for the ECSS Packet 3

4 Utilization Standard (PUS) services, external communication based on the Space Link Extension (SLE) standard, basic data pre- and post- processing, graphical user interface (GUI) displays. Extension components, implemented to cover specific mission and user requirements, not natively provided by EGS-CC. Each component has a set of clearly defined interfaces and a specified behavior, allowing for component update, customization or replacement, if needed. The infrastructure is complemented with the adaptors required to support the interfaces to the other components of the Core Control Segment (MPS, FDS, DAGS). The EGS-CC infrastructure provides everything required to assemble a full scale MCS. In the Telespazio VEGA Core Control Segment, however, an enhanced set of EGS-CC components is deployed, to boost the EGS-CC performance beyond its current limits, to extend the range of offered functionalities, to allow different deployment and access scenarios, enabling the concept of M&C As A Service and targeting small-scale missions. B. Web-based User Interface The UI displays provided with the default EGS-CC deployment are a set of Graphical User Interface components, built on top of the Eclipse framework. In order to enable a lean and easier access to the provided functionalities, the Telespazio VEGA MCS supplements the default EGS-CC displays with a separated, functioncomplete web-based UI, built as a web application. C. M&C As A Service One of the main advantages of the Telespazio VEGA MCS is the ability to allow access to M&C sessions and to be used by missions As A Service. Access to a mission-tailored M&C session is provided by means of the webbased user interface. The system allows for automated creation and access to M&C sessions directly from the webbased portal, after the provision of the configuration and tailoring data of the specific mission. M&C Administration HTTP Telespazio VEGA Mission Control System as a Service Mission 1 M&C Session (running) HTTP Global Session Mission 2 M&C Session (running) HTTP Mission 3 M&C Session (stopped) Web-based UI Register mission (i.e. M&C session) Monitor raw/processed data Request execution of activities Start/stop mission M&C session Update configuration/tailoring for mission Retrieve raw/processed data Monitor operational log messages Retrieve operational log messages Monitor execution of activities Retrieve activity history Monitor MCS status D. Small Missions Support The support to operations for small missions is provided in two different ways: By leveraging the MCaaS capability: in this setup, access to the MCS is performed from the web-based portal, and a single fully deployed installation can serve more than a mission. 4

5 By using the light version of the Telespazio VEGA MCS, which can be installed on a single hardware machine with limited power. This version replaces some EGS-CC components with custom implementations, providing only the functionalities, which are typically necessary for a small mission. This strategy allows the replacement of heavy-sized 3 rd party products (e.g. Hadoop) with more lightweight solutions and reduces the overall tailoring and configuration complexity of EGS-CC based systems. V. Mission Planning System A. Missions Planning Infrastructure The VEGA Planning Toolkit (VPT) is a core planning system that can be configured to support Flight Operations, Stations Network, or Payload Operations planning. It provides a modelling environment for the environment and the elements to be planned, a rule based engine for the orchestration of the planning process, and libraries of algorithms that can be assembled to implement the planning steps. Fig. 2 VPT-E Planning Infrastructure VPT provides A configuration repository for the characteristics of the mission A repository for plans A rule-based engine and associated rule language A plug-in mechanism for input and output of data, which supports the integration of the parsers required to import the potentially numerous external inputs to the planning system and generate all the planning products for targets internal and external to the Core Control Segment An Application Control Layer, which allows configuring the orchestration of the rule-based engine on the basis of rule blocks dependencies A generic Web-based MMI providing a planning control panel, Gantt chart and resource profile displays A configuration editor for the mission planning specific data B. Extensions for Earth observation The VEGA Planning Toolkit EO (VPT-E) is an extension of VPT focusing on Earth Observation missions. It features algorithms and graphical interfaces specific to Earth observation, as well as the typical workflows required for these missions. VPT-E provides Configurable Planning Steps (such as search/repair strategies) specific to EO missions Generic Models Web-based user interface for EO Module for attitude guidance The development of a planning system for a specific EO Mission requires configuring and integrating the relevant elements of the toolkit in the core application planning infrastructure and typically also include providing: Mission-specific models Mission-specific I/O Filters Mission-specific search/repair strategies 5

6 which can be built using the libraries provided in the toolkit and integrated to the planning workflow. C. Integration into the Core Control Segment Fig. 3 Examples of VPT-E Graphical User Interface Fig. 4 MPS Integration Interfacing the MPS to the EGS-CC-based MCS partly relies on the work performed by Telespazio VEGA for the European Space Operation Centre (ESOC) in the context of the MODE study, where a Mission Planning Adaptation Layer (MPAL) for EGS-CC and mission planning systems is being defined. The MPAL proposes to support the interface between the MPS and EGS-CC via the conversion of CRF. The interface is here slightly simplified, as the functionality provided by VPT to support I/O can be used to support the 6

7 adaptation. A CRF interface is nevertheless made available through the MPS, in order to support the interface with EGS-CC for other CRF sources, such as the Flight Dynamics System. The integration of the planning configuration environment in the operation preparation environment is at this stage not fully foreseen. The planning system requires planning-specific information, which is not supported by the operation preparation environment to date, and is edited and stored in the planning environment. VI. Operations Preparation Environment A. EGS-CC Preparation Environment The operations preparation environment includes all the tools required to configure the core control segment. It is essentially based on ESA s Open Preparation ENvironment (OPEN), with extensions relying on Telespazio VEGA s own component for the procedure editor. The objective of the OPEN framework is to ensure the coordination and consistency checking of all EGS-CC model data as they evolve, including mission data for both spacecraft AIT and operations and ground stations data for ground systems for multiple missions OPEN will support functions for viewing and editing models, version control, consistency checking, comparison and merge, import/export, etc. The framework supports fully the EGS-CC Monitoring and Control Model (MCM) and TM/TC packets, and provide a Generic Model Editor for additional data types. Specific extensions are required for some data types, including Flight Control Procedures and mission planning rules. The latter is covered by the configuration tools available within the Telespazio VEGA Planning Toolkit environment. The former is implemented by the Telespazio VEGA Operations Tools Procedure Editor (VOP-PE). B. Procedure Editor Fig. 5 Examples of VOT-PE Graphical User Interface VOT-PE is an operations procedure editor allowing preparing operations by providing an editor for the Flight Operation Procedures, and a visualization tool. It allows the definition of automated procedures in a purely graphical environment. The application is Java-based and uses the Eclipse platform; it does not require any non-free 3 rd party product or COTS. It is platform independent and can be deployed and used on standards platform (Windows, Linux). The tool is able to import procedures written in Spacecraft Operations Language Metamodel (SOLM) format, and able to export the procedure in Java and PDF format for the Flight Operation Manual (FOM). VOT-PE 7

8 natively supports the EGS-CC tailoring definitions (CDM), and allows generation of JAVA-compliant procedures for import in running systems. C. Integration into the Core Control Segment The data generated by VOT-PE must include amongst other the activity/procedure link required from EGS-CC for triggering procedure execution. The output of VOT-PE, including the generated JAVA procedures, is merged in in the CDM to be made available to EGS-CC automation. Fig. 6 VOT-PE Integration VII. Flight Dynamics System As opposed to the other components of the Core Control Segment, the Flight Dynamics Systems is based neither on EGS-CC nor on a specific Telespazio VEGA product. Several products have been developed and are used operationally in Telespazio, which rely on the FreeFlyer software from a.i. solutions Inc., or on the Orekit open source software. More recently, Telespazio VEGA has investigated solutions based on the Open Framework for Astrodynamics open source software. The Core Control Segment will initially provide a limited FDS based on the Open Framework for Astrodynamics, and rely on the data conversions libraries available in VPT-E to support interfacing an external flight dynamics component with the rest of the system. The interface will cover: S/C Tailoring Data from MPS to FDS Orbital data from ground stations Events from FDS to MPS and MCS Commanding from FDS to MPS and MCS VIII. Data Analytics The Data Analytics for Ground Segment (DAGS) module is an environment dedicated to support the analysis of the control segment data. It will support visualization and analysis of spacecraft parameters, as well as data mining algorithms for identification of patterns correlated to fault occurrence. The objectives of the environment include support to anomaly prediction and ultimately support to M&C automation. The current development relies on an integration of the DAGS at the parameter archive level. 8

9 Fig. 7 Data Analytics for Ground Segment IX. Current Status and Future Work EGS-CC is currently being developed for the European Space Agency by a Telespazio VEGA led Consortium. The first version of the mission control infrastructure that will be exercised in operational conditions, EGS-CC IR4, will be released in September The development of the Telespazio VEGA Core Control Segment is carried out in parallel with the EGS-CC development, in order to provide as early as possible a fully integrated solution that can be deployed for future missions, concentrating initially on Earth observation. The initial version of the Core Control Segment based on the EGS-CC IR4 is expected to be available mid X. Conclusion In this paper, we have presented Telespazio VEGA s plans to provide as of 2019 a Core Control Segment based on EGS-CC. The objective is to integrate the Telespazio VEGA products and EGS-CC in a complete solution supporting a control center for Earth observation. The Core Control Segment will include the latest versions of Telespazio VEGA products for mission planning and procedure edition, together with the initial version of a data analytics environment and a simple flight dynamics component. XI. References [1] Niezette, M., The VEGA Planning Toolkit a Flexible Tool for Planning Systems Development, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Space Operations, Stockholm, Sweden, June [2] Niezette, M., Laroque, C., and Shaw, I., A Core Control Segment for Earth Observation Missions, Proceedings of the 62 nd International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Cape Town, South Africa, October