Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
science data takes. The same agents involved in the orbit correction evaluation
also determine when SI reconfigurations need to be performed in response to
SAA events. In both cases, agent-generated thruster and SI commands must
be forwarded to the executive agent and relayed to the backbone, which QAs
the commands and issues the commands directly to the appropriate hardware.
Finally, any windowed realtime commands issued by the ground system
are processed by the planning and scheduling agent and inserted into the
timeline of onboard commands/activities as necessary. Once scheduled, these
realtime commands are treated onboard the same as any commands internally
generated.
This completes the narrative illustrating ground-to-space dialogs initiated
by the ground system in nominal performance of typical inflight activities.
In reality, the description provided is somewhat oversimplified, as the com-
munication flow in the example is sparse and sequential, whereas in reality,
communications will be more frequent and there will be parallel conversations
in progress during a single contact. Also, the assumptions specify a model of
far lower complexity than that characteristic of a real mission. So the exam-
ple provided should be viewed as simply a token of what would obtain in an
actual application.
B.4 Spacecraft Constellation Interactions Scenario
While the scenario discussions above were restricted to cooperative efforts
between Remote Agents on a single spacecraft or with counterpart agents in
the ground system, this subsection examines the far more elaborate topic of
integrating the efforts of multiple teams of agents on several spacecraft (as
well as the ground). This higher level of complexity introduces a whole new
set of issues unique to constellation work, including the following:
1.
Is a moderating agent/entity required to facilitate and referee dialogs
among the members of a constellation?
2.
Although all members of a constellation need to be aware of the results
from a constellation dialog, how do you decide which members should be
direct participants in a given dialog, and “who” makes that decision?
3.
How are dialogs created, i.e., how are the topics for a dialog selected?
For example, does a constellation member with a “problem” simply call
a “town meeting,” does it submit its problem to a moderator for consid-
eration, do problems un-resolvable by a single member get referred to the
ground system to be dealt with, etc.?
4.
As a dialog progresses, can constellation members “casually” drop in and
drop out? If so, is an ongoing record maintained as the dialog proceeds so
newly arriving or returning members can quickly get back up to speed? If
so, how is the record maintained and by whom?
5.
Are all dialogs short-term things with well-defined starts and endings,
or can a dialog extend over a long time duration, with gaps in activity
