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NASA NTRS2013

Master Console System Monitoring and Control Development

The Master Console internship during the spring of 2013 involved the development of firing room displays at the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC). This position was with the Master Console Product Group (MCPG) on the Launch Control System (LCS) project. This project is responsible for the System Monitoring and Control (SMC) and Record and Retrieval (R&R) of launch operations data. The Master Console is responsible for: loading the correct software into each of the remaining consoles in the firing room, connecting the proper data paths to and from the launch vehicle and all ground support equipment, and initializing the entire firing room system to begin processing. During my internship, I developed a system health and status display for use by Master Console Operators (MCO) to monitor and verify the integrity of the servers, gateways, network switches, and firewalls used in the firing room.

Brooks, Russell A.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Master Console System Monitoring and Control Development

The Master Console internship during the summer of 2013 involved the development of firing room displays and support applications at the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC). This position was with the Master Console Product Group (MCPG) on the Launch Control System (LCS) project. This project is responsible for the System Monitoring and Control (SMC) and Record and Retrieval (R&R) of launch operations data. The Master Console is responsible for: loading the correct software into each of the remaining consoles in the firing room, connecting the proper data paths to and from the launch vehicle and all ground support equipment, and initializing the entire firing room system to begin processing. During my internship, I created control scripts using the Application Control Language (ACL) to analyze the health and status of Kennedy Ground Control System (KGCS) programmable logic controllers (PLCs). This application provides a system health and status display I created with summarized data for use by Master Console Operators (MCO) to monitor and verify the integrity of KGCS subsystems.

Brooks, Russell A.↗

NASA NTRS1974

A full-scale fire program to evaluate new furnishings and textile materials developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

A program of experimental fires was carried out to establish the advantages offered by new materials for improved fire safety. Four full-scale bedrooms, differing only in the materials used to furnish them, were built and burned to provide comparative data on the fire hazards produced. Cost and availability differences were not considered. The visual evidence provided by TV and photographic coverage of the four experimental room fires showed clearly that the rooms responded very differently to a common ignition condition. Resistance to the ignition and spread of fire was substantially improved in the rooms furnished completely or partially with the new materials.

Hillenbrand, L. J.↗

NASA NTRS1978

Model fire tests on polyphosphazene rubber and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)/nitrile rubber foams

A video tape record of model room fire tests was shown, comparing polyphosphazene (P-N) rubber and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)/nitrile rubber closed-cell foams as interior finish thermal insulation under conditions directly translatable to an actual fire situation. Flashover did not occur with the P-N foam and only moderate amounts of low density smoke were formed, whereas with the PVC/nitrile foam, flashover occurred quickly and large volumes of high density smoke were emitted. The P-N foam was produced in a pilot plant under carefully controlled conditions. The PVC/nitrile foam was a commercial product. A major phase of the overall program involved fire tests on P-N open-cell foam cushioning.

Widenor, W. M.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Simulation of Deuterium Oxidation in a Room with a Fire

A series of experiments where deuterium was released in trace amounts into a room with a fire were performed at Sandia National Laboratories. This report describes the corresponding effort to model the test series using SIERRA/FUEGO. The objective of this modeling effort was to produce a simulation test matrix that can be utilized to help interpret the corresponding experiments and be used to assess the credibility of using the SIERRA/FUEGO simulations as a surrogate for real tritium reaction data for mock fire and release studies. The simulations assessed multiple configurations of fire size and location and overall found that there was low conversion of deuterium to oxidized deuterium. There are some notable differences between the simulation predictions and the experimental results, such as the simulations generally predicting higher amounts of deuterium conversion compared to the experiment. A strategy to address modeling uncertainties and unknowns is also given in this report.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

NASA NTRS1982

KSC ground support operations and equipment for the space transportation system

A significant element of the Kennedy Space Center's ground support equipment for the Space Shuttle is the Launch Processing System, which provides a high level of automation for all operations, including the checkout of the Orbiter, Solid Rocket Boosters, and External Tank. Other direct support elements of the Ground Support Equipment accomplish environmental conditioning, provide and control power, gases, and fluids, and supply vehicle facility and personnel fire protection. Attention is given to the prelaunch functions of the Launch Control Center's Firing Rooms, which contain minicomputers, a data recording area, the Hardware Interface Modules, a Common Data Buffer, and Front End Processors.

Utsman, T. E.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Managing computer-controlled operations

A detailed discussion of Launch Processing System Ground Software Production is presented to establish the interrelationships of firing room resource utilization, configuration control, system build operations, and Shuttle data bank management. The production of a test configuration identifier is traced from requirement generation to program development. The challenge of the operational era is to implement fully automated utilities to interface with a resident system build requirements document to eliminate all manual intervention in the system build operations. Automatic update/processing of Shuttle data tapes will enhance operations during multi-flow processing.

Plowden, J. B.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Launch vehicle operations cost reduction through artificial intelligence techniques

NASA's Kennedy Space Center has attempted to develop AI methods in order to reduce the cost of launch vehicle ground operations as well as to improve the reliability and safety of such operations. Attention is presently given to cost savings estimates for systems involving launch vehicle firing-room software and hardware real-time diagnostics, as well as the nature of configuration control and the real-time autonomous diagnostics of launch-processing systems by these means. Intelligent launch decisions and intelligent weather forecasting are additional applications of AI being considered.

Davis, Tom C., Jr.↗

NASA NTRS1991

AI aerospace components

An evaluation is made of the application of novel, AI-capabilities-related technologies to aerospace systems. Attention is given to expert-system shells for Space Shuttle Orbiter mission control, manpower and processing cost reductions at the NASA Kennedy Space Center's 'firing rooms' for liftoff monitoring, the automation of planetary exploration systems such as semiautonomous mobile robots, and AI for battlefield staff-related functions.

Heindel, Troy A.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Development of a Common User Interface for the Launch Decision Support System

The Launch Decision Support System (LDSS) is software to be used by the NASA Test Director (NTD) in the firing room during countdown. This software is designed to assist the NTD with time management, that is, when to resume from a hold condition. This software will assist the NTD in making and evaluating alternate plans and will keep him advised of the existing situation. As such, the interface to this software must be designed to provide the maximum amount of information in the clearest fashion and in a timely manner. This research involves applying user interface guidelines to a mature prototype of LDSS and developing displays that will enable the users to easily and efficiently obtain information from the LDSS displays. This research also extends previous work on organizing and prioritizing human-computer interaction knowledge.

Scholtz, Jean C.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Time management displays for shuttle countdown

The Intelligent Launch Decision Support System project is developing a Time Management System (TMS) for the NASA Test Director (NTD) to use for time management during Shuttle terminal countdown. TMS is being developed in three phases: an information phase; a tool phase; and an advisor phase. The information phase is an integrated display (TMID) of firing room clocks, of graphic timelines with Ground Launch Sequencer events, and of constraints. The tool phase is a what-if spreadsheet (TMWI) for devising plans for resuming from unplanned hold situations. It is tied to information in TMID, propagates constraints forward and backward to complete unspecified values, and checks the plan against constraints. The advisor phase is a situation advisor (TMSA), which proactively suggests tactics. A concept prototype for TMSA is under development. The TMID is currently undergoing field testing. Displays for TMID and TMWI are described. Descriptions include organization, rationale for organization, implementation choices and constraints, and use by NTD.

Beller, Arthur E.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Expanding the KATE toolbox

KATE (Knowledge-based Autonomous Test Engineer) is a model-based software system developed in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Kennedy Space Center for monitoring, fault detection, and control of launch vehicles and ground support systems. In order to bring KATE to the level of performance, functionality, and integratability needed for firing room applications, efforts are underway to implement KATE in the C++ programming language using an X-windows interface. Two programs which were designed and added to the collection of tools which comprise the KATE toolbox are described. The first tool, called the schematic viewer, gives the KATE user the capability to view digitized schematic drawings in the KATE environment. The second tool, called the model editor, gives the KATE model builder a tool for creating and editing knowledge base files. Design and implementation issues having to do with these two tools are discussed. It will be useful to anyone maintaining or extending either the schematic viewer or the model editor.

Thomas, Stan J.↗

NASA NTRS2002

STS-111/Endeavour/ISS UF2 Pre-Launch Activities: Launch with Playbacks

This video of the preflight preparations for and launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-111 begins with a view of Endeavour on the launch pad. Additional launch pad views leading up to liftoff are interspersed with footage from the Firing Room at Kennedy Space Center, the crew's prelaunch activities, and inspection of the crew members in the White Room before boarding Endeavour. The crew is introduced by a narrator during the preflight banquet and suiting up, and a later clip shows them departing to the launch site. The crew consists of Commander Kenneth Cockrell, Pilot Paul Lockhart, Mission Specialists Philippe Perrin and Franklin Chang-Diaz, and the Expedition 5 crew of the International Space Station (ISS) (Commander Valery Korzun and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitsun and Sergei Treschev). The nozzles on Endeavour's Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) are swiveled before liftoff, and the launch is shown past the separation of the solid rocket boosters. After a brief clip from the Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center, the following launch replays are shown: Beach Tracker, VAB, Pad A, Tower 1, UCS-15, Grandstand, Cocoa Beach DOAMS, Playalinda DOAMS, UCS-23, and OTV-070.

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NASA NTRS2005

STS-114: Discovery Mission Status Briefing

This video features mid-deck payloads being stowed at Pad 39B, a ribbon cutting ceremony at the NASA Shuttle Launch Facility (SLF) Air Traffic Control Tower and footage of the air traffic control radar constructed at Shiloh. The STS-114 Crewmembers, Commander, Eileen Collins, Pilot, James Kelly, Mission Specialist, Charles Camarda, Mission Specialist, Wendy Lawrence, Mission Specialist, Soichi Noguchi, JAXA, Mission Specialist, Stephen Robinson, and Mission Specialist Andrew Thomas are shown arriving at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. Eileen Collins introduces each crew member and talks to the news media about their role during this mission. The astronauts are also shown during their spacesuit fit check at the Operations and Control Center (O&C) and footage of a practice flight is presented. The start of the countdown clock in the firing room 3 of the launch control center is shown

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NASA NTRS2008

Simulation and Analysis of Launch Teams (SALT)

A SALT effort was initiated in late 2005 with seed funding from the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance Human Factors organization. Its objectives included demonstrating human behavior and performance modeling and simulation technologies for launch team analysis, training, and evaluation. The goal of the research is to improve future NASA operations and training. The project employed an iterative approach, with the first iteration focusing on the last 70 minutes of a nominal-case Space Shuttle countdown, the second iteration focusing on aborts and launch commit criteria violations, the third iteration focusing on Ares I-X communications, and the fourth iteration focusing on Ares I-X Firing Room configurations. SALT applied new commercial off-the-shelf technologies from industry and the Department of Defense in the spaceport domain.

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NASA NTRS2008

Bird Vision System

The Bird Vision system is a multicamera photogrammerty software application that runs on a Microsoft Windows XP platform and was developed at Kennedy Space Center by ASRC Aerospace. This software system collects data about the locations of birds within a volume centered on the Space Shuttle and transmits it in real time to the laptop computer of a test director in the Launch Control Center (LCC) Firing Room.

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NASA NTRS2010

Space Operations for a New Era of Exploration Launch Vehicles

NASA's Constellation Program is depending on the Ares Projects to deliver the crew and cargo launch capabilities needed to send human explorers to the Moon and beyond. Ares I and V will provide the core space launch capabilities needed to continue providing crew and cargo access to the International Space Station (ISS), and to build upon the U.S. history of human space exploration. Since 2005, Ares has made substantial progress on designing, developing, and testing the Ares I crew launch vehicle and has continued its in-depth studies of the Ares V cargo launch vehicles. The combined Ares I/Ares V architecture has been designed to reduce the complexity and labor intensity of ground operations for America's next journeys beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO). A deliberate effort is being made to ensure a high level of system operability to significantly increase safety and system availability as well as reduce recurring costs for this new launch vehicle. The Ares Projects goal is to instill operability as part of the vehicles requirements development, design, and operations. This simplicity will come from using simpler, proven engine designs, as in the case of the J-2X upper stage engine and RS-68 engine; improving existing hardware, as in the case of the Shuttle-heritage 5-segment solid rocket motor; and using common propulsion and instrument unit elements between Ares I and Ares V. Furthermore, lessons learned while developing Ares I will be applied directly to Ares V operations. In 2009, the Ares Projects plan to conduct the first flight test of Ares I, designated Ares I-X. Ares I-X preparations have already prompted changes to the vehicle stacking and launch infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), including removing Shuttle-specific fixtures from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to accommodate Ares I-style stacking operations, new firing room computers and infrastructure in the VAB Launch Control Center, and new lightning protection system towers at Launch Complex 39B to accommodate the greater height of Ares I-X. In addition to lessons learned from the stacking of Ares I-X, the flight test itself promises to yield important data and operations lessons for assembling, launching, and flying Ares I.

Cook, Stephen A.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Project Summary Report

The project, being the development of resource management applications, consisted entirely of my own effort. From deliverable requirements provided by my mentor, and some functional requirement additions generated through design reviews, It was my responsibility to implement the requested features as well as possible, given the resources available. For the most part development work consisted of database programming and functional testing using real resource data. Additional projects I worked on included some firing room console training, configuring the new NE-A microcontroller development lab network, mentoring high school CubeSat students, and managing the NE interns' component of the mentor appreciation ceremony.

Upchurch, Christopher↗