Overcoming challenges to air force satellite ground control automation

摘要

US Air Force satellite ground stations require significant manpower to operate. To improve operating efficiencies, the Air Force seeks to incorporate more automation into routine satellite operations. Interaction with autonomous systems includes not only daily operations, but also the development, maintainability, and the extensibility of such systems. This paper presents challenges to Air Force satellite automation: 1) existing architecture of legacy systems, 2) space segment diversity, and 3) unclear definition and scoping of the term “automation.” Using a qualitative case study approach, we survey comparable non-satellite operation domains (Industrial Control Automation and Software Testing) that have successfully integrated automation, and other satellite operation enterprises (NASA Goddard, Naval Research Laboratory, European Ground Station National Institute for Space Research in Brazil) to identify common themes and best practices. From this insight, we recommend that future satellite operation ground stations encourage the use of layered architectures, abstract satellite operation processes, and integrate simulators in future systems as concrete implementations of this common operating platform.