JPL software training plan
The purpose of this document is to define the software training approach and plans for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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The purpose of this document is to define the software training approach and plans for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
NASA's software engineering and Ada skill base are assessed and information that may result in new models for software engineering, Ada training plans, and curricula are provided. A quantitative assessment which reflects the requirements for software engineering and Ada training across NASA is provided. A recommended implementation plan including a suggested curriculum with associated duration per course and suggested means of delivery is also provided. The distinction between education and training is made. Although it was directed to focus on NASA's need for the latter, the key relationships to software engineering education are also identified. A rationale and strategy for implementing a life cycle education and training program are detailed in support of improved software engineering practices and the transition to Ada.
The definition of standard flight segments of phases, representing flight profile components which can be combined in various sequences to satisfy particular objectives, is a necessity for simplifying operational procedures and for minimizing the cost of flight planning, software development, and training. The critical elements are (1) a greater variety of generic segment types that may be incorporated into a given flight profile, (2) a greater variability of the order in which segments may be combined to construct a particular flight profile, and (3) a greater variation of detail within a given generic segment type. All of these variations arise basically from shuttle payload characteristics. They are manifested in a number of ways, including changes in the shuttle configuration from one flight to another.
This paper discusses JPL's approach and "lessons learned" from planning and delivering a software training program in an engineering and scientific environment.
This report presents a review of the software configuration management (CM) plans developed for the Space Station Training Facility (SSTF) and the Space Station Control Center. The scope of the CM assessed in this report is the Systems Integration and Testing Phase of the Ground Systems development life cycle. This is the period following coding and unit test and preceding delivery to operational use. This report is one of a series from a study of the interfaces among the Ground Systems Development Environment (GSDE), the development systems for the SSTF and the SSCC, and the target systems for SSCC and SSTF. This is the last report in the series. The focus of this report is on the CM plans developed by the contractors for the Mission Systems Contract (MSC) and the Training Systems Contract (TSC). CM requirements are summarized and described in terms of operational software development. The software workflows proposed in the TSC and MSC plans are reviewed in this context, and evaluated against the CM requirements defined in earlier study reports. Recommendations are made to improve the effectiveness of CM while minimizing its impact on the developers.
Purpose: Develop an automated Random Forest algorithm for tissue segmentation of CT examinations. Methods: Seven materials were classified for segmentation: background, lung/internal gas, fat, muscle, solid organ parenchyma, blood/contrast, and bone using Matlab and the Trainable Weka Segmentation (TWS) plugin of FIJI. The following classifier feature filters of TWS were investigated: minimum, maximum, mean, and variance each evaluated over a pixel radius of 2n, (n = 0–4). Also noise reduction and edge preserving filters, Gaussian, bilateral, Kuwahara, and anisotropic diffusion, were evaluated. The algorithm used 200 trees with 2 features per node. A training data set was established using an anonymized patient’s (male, 20 yr, 72 kg) chest-abdomen-pelvis CT examination. To establish segmentation ground truth, the training data were manually segmented using Eclipse planning software, and an intra-observer reproducibility test was conducted. Six additional patient data sets were segmented based on classifier data generated from the training data. Accuracy of segmentation was determined by calculating the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) between manual and auto segmented images. Results: The optimized autosegmentation algorithm resulted in 16 features calculated using maximum, mean, variance, and Gaussian blur filters with kernel radii of 1, 2, and 4 pixels, in addition to the original CT number, and Kuwahara filter (linear kernel of 19 pixels). Ground truth had a DSC of 0.94 (range: 0.90–0.99) for adult and 0.92 (range: 0.85–0.99) for pediatric data sets across all seven segmentation classes. The automated algorithm produced segmentation with an average DSC of 0.85 ± 0.04 (range: 0.81–1.00) for the adult patients, and 0.86 ± 0.03 (range: 0.80–0.99) for the pediatric patients. Conclusion: The TWS Random Forest auto-segmentation algorithm was optimized for CT environment, and able to segment seven material classes over a range of body habitus and CT protocol parameters with an average DSC of 0.86 ± 0.04 (range: 0.80–0.99).
Topics covered include: Cryogenic Temperature-Gradient Foam/Substrate Tensile Tester; Flight Test of an Intelligent Flight-Control System; Slat Heater Boxes for Thermal Vacuum Testing; System for Testing Thermal Insulation of Pipes; Electrical-Impedance-Based Ice-Thickness Gauges; Simulation System for Training in Laparoscopic Surgery; Flasher Powered by Photovoltaic Cells and Ultracapacitors; Improved Autoassociative Neural Networks; Toroidal-Core Microinductors Biased by Permanent Magnets; Using Correlated Photons to Suppress Background Noise; Atmospheric-Fade-Tolerant Tracking and Pointing in Wireless Optical Communication; Curved Focal-Plane Arrays Using Back-Illuminated High-Purity Photodetectors; Software for Displaying Data from Planetary Rovers; Software for Refining or Coarsening Computational Grids; Software for Diagnosis of Multiple Coordinated Spacecraft; Software Helps Retrieve Information Relevant to the User; Software for Simulating a Complex Robot; Software for Planning Scientific Activities on Mars; Software for Training in Pre-College Mathematics; Switching and Rectification in Carbon-Nanotube Junctions; Scandia-and-Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia for Thermal Barriers; Environmentally Safer, Less Toxic Fire-Extinguishing Agents; Multiaxial Temperature- and Time-Dependent Failure Model; Cloverleaf Vibratory Microgyroscope with Integrated Post; Single-Vector Calibration of Wind-Tunnel Force Balances; Microgyroscope with Vibrating Post as Rotation Transducer; Continuous Tuning and Calibration of Vibratory Gyroscopes; Compact, Pneumatically Actuated Filter Shuttle; Improved Bearingless Switched-Reluctance Motor; Fluorescent Quantum Dots for Biological Labeling; Growing Three-Dimensional Corneal Tissue in a Bioreactor; Scanning Tunneling Optical Resonance Microscopy; The Micro-Arcsecond Metrology Testbed; Detecting Moving Targets by Use of Soliton Resonances; and Finite-Element Methods for Real-Time Simulation of Surgery.
This semester I worked with the Flight Planning Branch at the NASA Johnson Space Center. I learned about the different aspects of flight planning for the International Space Station as well as the software that is used internally and ISSLive! which is used to help educate the public on the space program. I had the opportunity to do on the job training in the Mission Control Center with the planning team. I transferred old timeline records from the planning team's old software to the new software in order to preserve the data for the future when the software is retired. I learned about the operations of the International Space Station, the importance of good communication between the different parts of the planning team, and enrolled in professional development classes as well as technical classes to learn about the space station.
This paper presents the results of a preliminary study into the prospects for simulating the software implementation and maintenance life cycle process, with the aim of producing a computerized tool for use by management and software engineering personnel in project planning, tradeoff studies involving product, environmental, situational, and technological factors, and training. The approach taken is the modular application of a 'flow of resource' concept to the systems dynamics simulation modeling technique. The software life cycle process is represented as a number of stochastic, time-varying, interacting work tasks that each achieves one of the project milestones. Each task is characterized by the item produced, the personnel applied, and the budgetary profile.
This research focused on two main problems: 1) low cost, high fidelity stereoscopic imaging of complex tissues and organs; and 2) virtual cutting of tissue. A further objective was to develop these images and virtual tissue cutting methods for use in a telemedicine project that would connect remote sites using the Next Generation Internet. For goal one we used a CT scan of a human heart, a desktop PC with an OpenGL graphics accelerator card, and LCD stereoscopic glasses. Use of multiresolution meshes ranging from approximately 1,000,000 to 20,000 polygons speeded interactive rendering rates enormously while retaining general topography of the dataset. For goal two, we used a CT scan of an infant skull with premature closure of the right coronal suture, a Silicon Graphics Onyx workstation, a Fakespace Immersive WorkBench and CrystalEyes LCD glasses. The high fidelity mesh of the skull was reduced from one million to 50,000 polygons. The cut path was automatically calculated as the shortest distance along the mesh between a small number of hand selected vertices. The region outlined by the cut path was then separated from the skull and translated/rotated to assume a new position. The results indicate that widespread high fidelity imaging in virtual environment is possible using ordinary PC capabilities if appropriate mesh reduction methods are employed. The software cutting tool is applicable to heart and other organs for surgery planning, for training surgeons in a virtual environment, and for telemedicine purposes.
The Guidance and Control Software (GCS) project was the last in a series of software reliability studies conducted at Langley Research Center between 1977 and 1994. The technical results of the GCS project were recorded after the experiment was completed. Some of the support documentation produced as part of the experiment, however, is serving an unexpected role far beyond its original project context. Some of the software used as part of the GCS project was developed to conform to the RTCA/DO-178B software standard, "Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification," used in the civil aviation industry. That standard requires extensive documentation throughout the software development life cycle, including plans, software requirements, design and source code, verification cases and results, and configuration management and quality control data. The project documentation that includes this information is open for public scrutiny without the legal or safety implications associated with comparable data from an avionics manufacturer. This public availability has afforded an opportunity to use the GCS project documents for DO-178B training. This report provides a brief overview of the GCS project, describes the 4-volume set of documents and the role they are playing in training, and includes the planning documents from the GCS project. Volume 1 contains five appendices: A. Plan for Software Aspects of Certification for the Guidance and Control Software Project; B. Software Development Standards for the Guidance and Control Software Project; C. Software Verification Plan for the Guidance and Control Software Project; D. Software Configuration Management Plan for the Guidance and Control Software Project; and E. Software Quality Assurance Activities.
Future exploration missions will consist of a multitude of data sources, systems, and operators collaborating to complete mission objectives. Presently, NASA is instantiating the contractual mechanisms, such as the xEVAS and HLS contracts, to produce these mission assets. Architectural planning is also underway to establish the networking protocols and infrastructure to digitally create and connect mission elements, such as LunaNET. However, without new horizontally integrated data systems, these advancements will be limited in their ability to get mission data appropriately integrated into the plan, train, fly, explore workflow of the operations workforce. Here we describe several mission system software development efforts underway that are designed to support human spaceflight missions. We describe the current iterations of a suite of tools to support EVA procedure authoring and execution, for both ISS and Artemis missions, as well as a software solution to establish and interact with mission context and data products. These tools have been developed iteratively and continue to be tested in several NASA facilities such as the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL), Artemis field testing, and in present-day International Space Station (ISS) operations on orbit. Our solutions demonstrate how software development can be aligned with ongoing operations development activities to discover the features that best support future human spaceflight missions.
Melter tests were conducted to determine the retention of technetium and other volatiles in glass while processing simulated Low Activity Waste (LAW) streams through a DM10 melter equipped with a prototypical off-gas system that concentrates and recycles fluid effluents back to the melter feed. To support these tests, an existing DM10 system installed at Vitreous State Laboratory (VSL) was modified to add the required recycle loop. Based on the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) LAW off-gas system design, suitably scaled versions of the Submerged Bed Scrubber (SBS), Wet Electrostatic Precipitator (WESP), and TLP vacuum evaporator were designed, built, and installed into the DM10 system. Process modeling was used to support this design effort and to ensure that issues associated with the short half life of the 99m Tc radioisotope that was used in this work were properly addressed and that the system would be capable of meeting the test objectives. In particular, this required that the overall time constant for the system was sufficiently short that a reasonable approach to steady state could be achieved before the 99m Tc activity dropped below the analytical limits of detection. The conceptual design, detailed design, flow sheet development, process model development, Piping and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) development, control system design, software design and development, system fabrication, installation, procedure development, operator training, and Test Plan development for the new system were all conducted during this project. The new system was commissioned and subjected to a series of shake-down tests before embarking on the planned test program. Various system performance issues that arose during testing were addressed through a series of modifications in order to improve the performance and reliability of the system. The resulting system provided a robust and reliable platform to address the test objectives.
Future exploration missions will consist of a multitude of data sources, systems, and operators collaborating to complete mission objectives. Presently, NASA is instantiating the contractual mechanisms, such as the Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) and Human Landing System (HLS) contracts, to produce these mission assets. Architectural planning is also underway to establish the networking protocols and infrastructure to digitally create and connect mission elements, such as LunaNET. However, without new horizontally integrated data systems, these advancements will be limited in their ability to get mission data appropriately integrated into the plan, train, fly, explore workflow of the flight operations workforce. Here we describe several mission system software development efforts underway that are designed to support human spaceflight missions. This paper describes the current iterations of a suite of tools to support EVA procedure authoring and execution, and mission context creation for both International Space Station (ISS) and Artemis missions. These tools have been developed iteratively and continue to be used in present-day ISS operations on orbit and in several NASA facilities such as the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL) and Artemis field testing. These solutions demonstrate how software development can be aligned with ongoing operations development activities to discover the features that best support both current and future human spaceflight missions.
Future exploration missions will consist of a multitude of data sources, systems, and operators collaborating to complete mission objectives. Presently, NASA is instantiating the contractual mechanisms, such as the Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) and Human Landing System (HLS) contracts, to produce these mission assets. Architectural planning is also underway to establish the networking protocols and infrastructure to digitally create and connect mission elements, such as LunaNET. However, without new horizontally integrated data systems, these advancements will be limited in their ability to get mission data appropriately integrated into the plan, train, fly, explore workflow of the flight operations workforce. Here we describe several mission system software development efforts underway that are designed to support human spaceflight missions. This paper describes the current iterations of a suite of tools to support EVA procedure authoring and execution, and mission context creation for both International Space Station (ISS) and Artemis missions. These tools have been developed iteratively and continue to be used in present-day ISS operations on orbit and in several NASA facilities such as the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL) and Artemis field testing. These solutions demonstrate how software development can be aligned with ongoing operations development activities to discover the features that best support both current and future human spaceflight missions.
The software quality assurance oversight consists of updating and maintaining revision control of the System Analysis Program for Hands-on Integrated Reliability Evaluations (SAPHIRE) Version 8 quality assurance program documentation and of monitoring revision control of the SAPHIRE Version 8 source code. This report summarizes the oversight efforts through description of the revision control system (RCS) setup, operation and contents. Documents maintained under revision control include the Acceptance Test Plan (ATP), Configuration Management Plan, Quality Assurance Plan, Software Project Plan, Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM), System Test Plan, Significance Determination Process (SDP) Interface Training Manual, and the SAPHIRE 8 “New Features and Capabilities Overview.” These documents are referred to and can be transmitted upon request of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).
The objective of the 3-year project was to collect integral effects test (IET) data to validate the RELAP5-3D code and other thermal hydraulics codes for use in predicting the transient thermal hydraulics response of liquid salt cooled reactor systems, including integral transient response for forced and natural circulation operation. The reference system for the project is a modular, 900-MWth Pebble Bed Advanced High Temperature Reactor (PB-AHTR), a specific type of Fluoride salt-cooled High temperature Reactor (FHR). Two experimental facilities were developed for thermal-hydraulic integral effects tests (IETs) and separate effects tests (SETs). The facilities use simulant fluids for the liquid fluoride salts, with very little distortion to the heat transfer and fluid dynamics behavior. The CIET Test Bay facility was designed, built, and operated. IET data for steady state and transient natural circulation was collected. SET data for convective heat transfer in pebble beds and straight channel geometries was collected. The facility continues to be operational and will be used for future experiments, and for component development. The CIET 2 facility is larger in scope, and its construction and operation has a longer timeline than the duration of this grant. The design for the CIET 2 facility has drawn heavily on the experience and data collected on the CIET Test Bay, and it was completed in parallel with operation of the CIET Test Bay. CIET 2 will demonstrate start-up and shut-down transients and control logic, in addition to LOFC and LOHS transients, and buoyant shut down rod operation during transients. Design of the CIET 2 Facility is complete, and engineering drawings have been submitted to an external vendor for outsourced quality controlled construction. CIET 2 construction and operation continue under another NEUP grant. IET data from both CIET facilities is to be used for validation of system codes used for FHR modeling, such as RELAP5-3D. A set of numerical models were developed in parallel to the experimental work. RELAP5-3D models were developed for the salt-cooled PB-AHTR, and for the simulat fluid CIET natural circulation experimental loop. These models are to be validated by the data collected from CIET. COMSOL finite element models were used to predict the temperature and fluid flow distribution in the annular pebble bed core; they were instrumental for design of SETs, and they can be used for code-to-code comparisons with RELAP5-3D. A number of other small SETs, and numerical models were constructed, as needed, in support of this work. The experiments were designed, constructed and performed to meet CAES quality assurance requirements for test planning, implementation, and documentation; equipment calibration and documentation, procurement document control; training and personnel qualification; analysis/modeling software verification and validation; data acquisition/collection and analysis; and peer review.
In the search for a sustainable approach for software ecosystems that supports experimental and observational science (EOS) across Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we conducted a survey to understand the current and future landscape of EOS software and data. This paper describes the survey design we used to identify significant areas of interest, gaps, and potential opportunities, followed by a discussion on the obtained responses. The survey formulates questions about project demographics, technical approach, and skills required for the present and the next five years. The study was conducted among 38 ORNL participants between June and July of 2021 and followed the required guidelines for human subjects training. We plan to use the collected information to help guide a vision for sustainable, community-based, and reusable scientific software ecosystems that need to adapt effectively to: i) the evolving landscape of heterogeneous hardware in the next generation of instruments and computing (e.g. edge, distributed, accelerators), and ii) data management requirements for data-driven science using artificial intelligence.