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Software & Autonomous Subsystems

Encyclopedia
Updated Feb 12, 2024

Contents

Introduction

Software and autonomous systems are crucial for human spaceflight as they enable precise control, automation, and decision-making, ensuring the safety, efficiency, and success of complex space missions. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is a leader in software and autonomous subsystems for human spaceflight, offering an array of capabilities in high-fidelity, real-time, human-in-the-loop engineering simulations. Our expertise encompasses software development for flight and ground systems, real-time, mission-critical embedded software, software integration, and hardware-in-the-loop testing. As a Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) certified organization, JSC ensures excellence in software development, including the Human-rated Open Source Class A Core Flight Software (CFS) Framework. NASA JSC Spacecraft Software Engineering Branch provides world-class products, leadership, and technical expertise in software engineering, processes, and technology for human spaceflight programs. We invite our partners to leverage our advanced software and autonomous system capabilities, collaborating with us to enhance the reliability, efficiency, and innovation of future space missions.

Capabilities

Software Development and Testing 

Overview | NASA JSC Spacecraft Software Engineering Branch provides world-class products, leadership, and technical expertise in software engineering, processes, and technology for human spaceflight programs. 

Details | JSC’s Spacecraft Software Engineering Branch develops flight and ground software for a variety of space vehicles, large and small, crewed, and un-crewed. We maintain a CMMI Maturity Level 3 rating for software (required for developing human-rated software at NASA). We maintain the Core Flight Software product line, and lead software technology development at JSC for creating, editing, managing, and executing electronic procedures, with/without augmented reality capabilities, and hybrid reality systems to revolutionize the way NASA performs crew training, on-orbit operations, and vehicle design. As chairs of JSC’s Engineering Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) and the broader JSC SEPG, we perform software classifications and conduct safety criticality assessments for flight projects, and coordinate implementation of Center-wide software policies, process requirements, process improvements and training initiatives, flight, and ground software for a variety of space vehicles. 

Evaluation of Computer-Based Control System Control of Catastrophic and Critical Hazards 

Overview | Working groups are available to assist developers building a system utilizing computer control of hazards. A logical methodology has been developed to assist in designing, testing, and verifying the system will perform as expected with acceptable risks for hardware and operators. Expertise is available with software development utilizing best practices for software development using a total life cycle approach. 

Details | Computer-Based Control Systems (CBCS) use computer hardware and software as an integral part of the System Safety Process. CBCS safety is the application of engineering and management principles, criteria, and techniques to provide hardware failure and software error tolerance to minimize risks associated with the use of computers to control hazards. 

Integrated Graphics Operations and Analysis Laboratory (IGOAL) 

Overview | The Integrated Graphics Operations and Analysis Laboratory (IGOAL) provides computer graphics services for organizations throughout NASA and other institutions. These services include highly realistic visualizations of space systems and conceptual design concepts; custom graphics programming for simulations, visualizations, and education and outreach; and 3D graphics model creation, reduction, verification, and validation. 

Details |

  • Computer graphics services
  • 3-D engineering visualization, modeling, and graphics custom software development 
  • Animated Graphics for Engineering Analysis (AGEA)
  • Mobile applications for phones and tablets 
  • SATERN-style training modules (NASA’s internal training platform) 
  • IGOAL software programming supports many platforms including iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and the web 
  • IGOAL graphics models can be output in many popular formats including FBX, Blender, AutoCAD, OBJ, and Inventor 
  • IGOAL software products include Space Station Research Explorer (mobile devices on iTunes and Google Play), Visual ISS Communication tool, AGEA, EMU Explorer, and Counter Measure Systems Explorer 
Commercial Crew Astronaut Mike Hopkins practices spacewalking in the Virtual Reality Lab at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The training provides real-time graphics and motion simulators to replicate the space environment. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is working with Boeing and SpaceX to return human spaceflight launches to the United States in 2019. Hopkins is assigned to SpaceX’s first operational mission after the company’s test flight with crew.
Black Point Lava Flow, Arizona photo of Engineering Run in field. Mission Day 2. Day 2 of the 3-day engineering test for Desert Research and Technology Studies (DesertRATS), one of NASA’s analog missions to test hardware and operational scenarios in a remote environment with geographic similarities to the Moon and Mars.. PHOTOGRAPHER: BILL STAFFORD
HOUSTON – Chris Ferguson, a former space shuttle commander who is now director of Crew and Mission Operations for Boeing Space Exploration, talks with an engineer following simulations that showed that the CST-100 software. Boeing demonstrated that the CST-100 software allows a human pilot to take over control of the spacecraft from the computer during all phases of a mission following separation from the launch vehicle. The pilot-in-the-loop demonstration at the Houston Product Support Center is a milestone under Boeing’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability agreement with the agency and its Commercial Crew Program. Photo credit: NASA/Bill Stafford
A view of the wiring or the shuttle payload bay in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) at the Johnson Space Center on Tuesday, July 12, 2011, in Houston. The laboratory is a skeletal avionics version of the shuttle that uses actual orbiter hardware and flight software. The facility even carries the official orbiter designation as OV-095.
NASA Photo / Houston Chronicle,
Chris St. Julian, left, a Prairie View A&M electrical engineering major who is interning at NASA for the summer, pilots the shuttle for a simulated landing in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, July 12, 2011. The laboratory is a skeletal avionics version of the shuttle that uses actual orbiter hardware and flight software. The facility bears the orbiter designation of Orbiter Vehicle 095.
Photo credit: NASA Photo/Houston Chronicle, Smiley N. Pool

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