A Planning System for Payload and System Planning of the Columbus Module on ISS

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G.A. Zoeschinger , M. Wickler , A. Koehler , R. Axmann

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DLR/GSOC, Oberpfaffenhofen, D-82234 Wessling, Germany.

In a competitive bid ESA has chosen the DLR/GSOC Planning System as the kernel planning

Downloaded by 37.44.207.66 on January 15, 2017 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.2004-271-121

system for payload and system planning for the European Columbus module on ISS. The GSOC Planning System is a well established and proven suite of tools that has been successfully used in several space missions so far. Recent versions of the system are currently operated in the multi-mission environment at the German Space Operations Center (GSOC). Due to its modular, generic multi-purpose character, the Planning System has the capability for easy adaptation to specific mission needs. Parts of the system can also be configured to be used by other parties involved in the Columbus planning process, like USOCs, FRCs, ground operators and ATV-planners. The System offers a broad spectrum of necessary functionality for more effective planning, like a well-elaborated interactive planning capability with resource management, conflict checking and a fast scheduling engine with optimisation capability based on user-defined strategies. The Planning System will be used for payload as well as system planning of the Columbus module. All planning phases, beginning from long-term planning (On-Orbit Summary), short-term planning (STP) to real-time replanning by the Flight Control Team will be supported. A dedicated interface module ensures compatibility with already standardised planning objects of the ISS International Partners. The System provides capabilities to seamlessly integrate ground communications planning into the overall planning process with the goal of minimising the cost for communication services in support of the user community. The end users are offered the possibility to play an active role in supporting the planning process, since components of the Planning System can be easily installed at user premises and can be used to assist the preparation of activity definitions and resource models. The results of the planning are communicated to the user community by freely configurable Web displays. The GSOC Planning System will be customised and adjusted for Columbus needs by a European private-public consortium that will later also operate the System at the Columbus Control Center at Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. The close alliance between developers and operators in one single team over the whole system life-cycle will guarantee sustained engineering and maintenance.

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I. Columbus Module and Col-CC The European Columbus laboratory is a pressurised, habitable module that will be attached to Node 2 on the International Space Station ISS. Columbus will be launched on a Space Shuttle in autumn 2006. The Columbus module will be operated by the Columbus Control Center (Col-CC) at DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt – German Aerospace Center) in Oberpfaffenhofen in Germany. Col-CC will be responsible for Columbus system control and monitoring, European payload co-ordination and for the provision of MSM communications infrastructure (IGS).

Downloaded by 37.44.207.66 on January 15, 2017 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.2004-271-121

II. Operations Preparation and Planning System The Col-CC responsibility for preparation, planning and co-ordination for the individual operational increments over the whole Columbus life time calls for an “Operations Preparation and Planning System” and an associated planning team working according to the overall ISS planning process. ESA placed a contract for the development of the planning tools and for the build-up of the operations team. The tool development is based on the kernel of the already existing DLR/GSOC Planning System.

III. DLR/GSOC Planning System – Design Principles The DLR/GSOC Planning System is a well established and proven suite of tools. The major components of the system are composed of an interactive planning and scheduling tool, an automatic scheduling back-end, a web-based timeline viewer, a data collection front-end, and an orbit propagation and event generation component associated with a ground track visualisation part. Parts of the system in different combinations have been successfully used in several space missions so far, both in-house and by external parties. Recent versions of the system are currently operated in the multi-mission environment at the German Space Operations Center (GSOC). An adapted and extended version of the GSOC Planning System serves as the kernel planning system for payload and system planning of the Columbus module. The DLR/GSOC Planning System has been designed having in mind a modular and multipurpose character. It provides capability for easy adaptation to specific mission needs. It comprises interactive and automated capabilities with resource management and conflict checking. A comprehensive interactive user interface provides all means for manual rescheduling and builds the interface for a fast back-end scheduling engine with optimisation capability based on user-definable strategies.

IV. High Level Needs for a Columbus Planning System From a high level point of the view the Columbus planning system (OPPS) shall support the complete ESA ISS operations planning for payload and system aspects of the Columbus module and also the European payload activities in other Partners’ segments/elements. It shall be used by the

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ESA Execute Planning Team (EPT) at Col-CC, external users at Facility Responsible Centres (FRCs), and ground operators in the Flight Control Team. It shall support all ISS execute level planning phases, starting with the Pre-Increment Planning (On-Orbit Summary), then doing the ShortTerm Planning (Weekly Look-Ahead Plan and Short-Term Plan) and the Real-Time Replanning by the Columbus Operations Planner (who is part of the Columbus Flight Control Team). OPPS has to incorporate functions such as data collection, activity modelling, resource management, planning and scheduling, and publishing as well as data exchange between International Partner.

V. OPPS Flavours The identified planning processes advise that the users at the FRCs have to be closely

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involved in the operations planning phases. The FRCs also expressed their need to have a tool available that would allow them to plan FRC internal timelines, to create alternative schedules and to analyse different planning scenarios of experiment runs that are to be executed onboard Columbus. Dependent on that FRC internal analysis a consolidated schedule proposal with associated activity definitions should then be submitted to the planning team at Col-CC. Taking these demands into account, the detailed analysis of the possible interfacing mechanisms of how the planning system could interact with the remote users led to the key point of the OPPS design, introducing the “two-flavours architecture”. This architecture foresees that OPPS will be installed in a “Master OPPS“ mode at Col-CC based on a central database storing all Columbus related planning data. This instance will be used by the ESA Execute Planning Team (EPT) and will provide the complete set of functionality that is required for integrating the Columbus plans into the overall ISS plans. On the other hand a customised version of OPPS that is adapted to the specific needs for the remote users at an FRC, the “OPPS-Lite”, will be installed at FRC premises and directly be used by the FRC representatives. These OPPS instances at the user sites will be light-weighted adaptations of the Col-CC OPPS, with a local sub-set of the database. The setup would allow the users to work with OPPS-Lite completely offline without requiring a permanent network connection. A dedicated function of OPPS-Lite would then synchronise the local data with the central repository at Col-CC when the OPPS-Lite is online again and connected to the Master OPPS at Col-CC. The following sketch shows the relevant parts of the two-flavours OPPS architecture.

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Downloaded by 37.44.207.66 on January 15, 2017 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.2004-271-121

This two-flavours design offers the users at FRCs the possibility to play an active role in supporting the overall planning process. The OPPS-Lite installation at user sites will have as a core part the interactive planning tool PINTA, augmented by a customised planning collection functionality, the PDE (Planning Data Editor). The installation process of OPPS-Lite will be automated and straightforward and can be accomplished without any on-site support of EPT members. However, if desired, training sessions detailing the usage of the tool and supporting familiarisation with its functionalities are offered by the EPT.

VI. OPPS-Lite: Data Collection and Schedule Proposals OPPS-Lite supports the FRCs in building activity and resource models and in generating the corresponding planning requests. It enables an FRC to plan and schedule their internal timelines (like FRC specific ground operations), to create alternative experiment schedules, to check and analyse its feasibility, and to elaborate different planning scenarios. The consolidated planning requests and pre-worked schedule proposals are submitted via OPPS-Lite to the planners at Col-CC for integration into the overall ISS plan.

VII. OPPS: Interactive Planning Using PINTA PINTA is the interactive planning component of the planning system and is used in both flavours of OPPS. It provides resource management, conflict checking and a graphical timeline generation capability. PINTA as part of OPPS-Lite is used by FRCs at different sites all over Europe and it is also used by the EPT at Col-CC, including the on-console Columbus Operations Planner (COP) who will use it for his Real-Time Replanning tasks.

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VIII. OPPS: Automatic Planning Using PLATO PLATO is the automatic scheduling back-end that provides a fast scheduling engine with an optimisation capability that can be based on user-definable strategies. It is highly integrated with PINTA. Depending on the operational needs timelines can be built on a step-by-step basis or as a whole.

IX. OPPS: Integration of Ground Communications Planning The master OPPS at Col-CC also provides a capability to seamlessly integrate ground communications planning into the overall planning process. The desire has been expressed to have a

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tool available that could minimise the cost for communication services in support of the user community. The details of how this integration will be accomplished are currently under investigation.

X. OPPS: Timeline Reports/Views Using TimOnWeb OPPS also foresees the component TimOnWeb that communicates the results of the planning process and the timeline integration back to the user community and also to the Flight Control Team. TimOnWeb is a Web display that can be freely configured by the end user. TimOnWeb can provide a multitude of different views to the Columbus timeline, like data management plans, ground communication schedules or views that are focusing on Columbus system activities or critical payload activities, which might be of special interest for the FCT. FRCs might customise their relevant views according to facility oriented sub-sets of the overall timeline. TimOnWeb can include resource usage profiles of the scheduled activities, additional Columbus related information and constraints and experiment associated procedures that are linked to the activities. Since Unicode is supported, TimOnWeb can easily display Cyrillic characters. Conflicts in the published timeline, if there are any, can be indicated appropriately. TimOnWeb accesses the central data repository at Col-CC and thus reflects the latest status of the planning information. Standard pre-defined reports can be invoked directly through TimOnWeb. If more elaborated and customised reports are required, the OPPS-Lite user also has the possibility to create his own reports based on queries to the local (and synchronised) database of OPPS-Lite.

XI. OPPS Development Team and Operators The GSOC/DLR planning system will be customised and adjusted for Columbus needs by a European private-public consortium. This consortium encompasses system developers as well as operations personnel. The intention is that this consortium will later also operate the planning system at the Columbus Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. The resulting close alliance between developers and operators in one single team would focus the planning know-how and guarantee sustained engineering and maintenance of the system over the whole life-cycle.

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XII. Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank the EPT members for all the inspiring and sometimes thrilling discussions.

XIII. Abbreviations and Glossary ATV Col-CC COP

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DLR EPT ESA FCT FRC GSOC ISS OOS OPPS OPPS-Lite PDE PINTA PLATO STP TimOnWeb USOC WLP

Automated Transfer Vehicle. Columbus Control Center. Located at DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. Columbus Operations Planner. The COP is a member of the Col-CC Flight Control Team, console position in the Col-CC main control room. Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt – German Aerospace Center ESA Execute Planning Team. The team that is responsible for the ESA ISS operations planning as well as the planning tool development. European Space Agency Flight Control Team Facility Responsible Centre German Space Operations Center International Space Station On-Orbit Summary Operations Preparation and Planning System – The name of the specific planning system that is used for Columbus operations planning. A light-weighted version of the OPPS that is installed at user premises providing data collection means and scheduling capabilities. Planning Data Editor. A customised component, used for data collection and activity definition, installed with PINTA as part of OPPS-Lite at user sites. Program for INTeractive Timeline Analysis. The major component of the DLR/GSOC Planning System, an interactive planning and scheduling tool. PLanning TOol. The automatic scheduling back-end of the DLR/GSOC Planning System. Short Term Plan. A planning product that will be generated during the ISS planning process. The STP contains the integrated ISS plan that will be executed on-board, with a resolution down to the minute. Web version of TIMON (TIMline Output Navigator). The view-only component of the DLR/GSOC Planning System. User Support Operations Center Weekly-Look-ahead Plan. A planning product that will be generated during the ISS planning process, containing an overview of the planned activities of a day onboard ISS.

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