| Agenda | |
| Working Groups | |
Working Group B |
The Prudent Application of Automation Techniques, including AI/ML, in Ground Systems |
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Wednesday – February 26, 2025 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM PT |
Description |
Due to the constraints of on-board processing, coupled with a low tolerance for risk, satellites of yesterday typically required ground intervention for almost all aspects of bus and payload housekeeping and operations. During this time, it was not uncommon to have an individual bus operator assigned to each satellite in a constellation and, possibly, another for the payload depending on payload complexity. Operators would be required to be on station twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week- including holidays. To accommodate this concept of operations, mission ground systems/stations had to support a very large staff (and associated payroll) and required large footprints to accommodate personnel workspaces. Eventually, this forced the introduction of some levels of ground automation to reduce the number of staff and to combat the increasing potential for human error. Automation was typically confined to remedial command scripting using predefined command decks for routine functions.
Advances in on-board processing technology, the commoditization of satellite production and the significant lowering of launch costs have all contributed to mission constellation sizes growing in both number and complexity rendering the old concept of operations requiring a human to be “in-the-loop” for every aspect of operations for every satellite to become both untenable and unaffordable. Complexity and decision timelines required to manage these large constellations are demanding higher degrees of automation be implemented both on the ground and the spacecraft. Functions like station keeping, fault detection, fault mitigation and redundancy management that used to all be ground functions by necessity can now be handled, to some degree, on-board the satellite. There are even studies looking at transitioning some aspects of mission planning and contact scheduling to the satellite. The appropriate balance of spacecraft/ground automation, and where & how it is to be applied is a function of risk tolerance, cost and mission requirements and needs to be assessed on a mission-by-mission basis. There is no “one size fits all” solution. This working group will examine how various government and commercial organizations have and/or are incorporating automation into their systems. The first half of the workshop will be presentations from a panel of various government and commercial organizations regarding the implementation of automation in their systems. After each presenter, there will be a brief question and answer period. Each presenter will offer one or two challenges they face in implementing automation. The second half of the workshop will consist of the workshop participants helping to address the challenges cited by the panelists as well as other challenges the participants themselves may be facing. |
| Lead | Donald Sather, The Aerospace Corporation |
Biographies |
Donald Sather has over 39 years of experience working with the United States space community at The Aerospace Corporation. The first 8 years of his career consisted of designing, integrating and testing radiation-hardened embedded processing components and systems for several different spacecraft programs. For the last 30 years, he has been designing, integrating, testing and upgrading individual ground systems as well as entire ground facilities to support various satellite and booster programs. He has served as the Chief Engineer for the US Air Force Satellite Control Network and Launch Ranges. He also has experience as a satellite operator and managed a telemetry processing center. He currently serves as a Technical Fellow of The Aerospace Corporation. |