Revolutionising Science-Driven Deep Space Mission Operations Using Autonomously-Operating Spacecraft as Demonstrated with ASE on EO-1.

Details Revolutionising Science-Driven Deep Space Mission Operations Using Autonomously-Operating Spacecraft as Demonstrated with ASE on EO-1. Revolutionising Science-Driven Deep Space Mission Operations Using Autonomously-Operating Spacecraft as Demonstrated with ASE on EO-1.

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p41a0924d&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P41A-0924

Physics

5464 Remote Sensing, 5494 Instruments And Techniques, 8485 Remote Sensing Of Volcanoes, 8499 General Or Miscellaneous, 9820 Techniques Applicable In Three Or More Fields

Scientific paper

Until now, deep-space missions, separated from Earth by long communication times, have not had the capacity to quickly react to dynamic, ephemeral events that are of high science value. The capability of a spacecraft to react on a short time scale to such events is now a reality. The New Millennium Program Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) has successfully demonstrated autonomous, science-driven spacecraft operations. This flight-proven technology consists of (1) data classifiers, used to detect features of scientific interest; (2) an onboard planner than allocates available resources and creates observation sequences; and (3) a spacecraft command language that operates the spacecraft and instruments. ASE is flying on the Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) spacecraft in Earth orbit and autonomously detects active cloud cover, volcanism, changes in the cryosphere and flood events. Data are processed on-board EO-1. The spacecraft and Hyperion hyperspectral imager are then re-tasked to obtain further observations of the target. So far, this process has been executed over 300 times on-board EO-1. Additionally, in the special case of active volcanism, a data subset containing spectra of hot pixels is extracted and preferentially returned. This technology can enhance science return per returned byte by orders of magnitude. ASE technology is being infused onto Mars Odyssey to process THEMIS thermal imager data, with the goal of autonomously detecting thermal anomalies (hot spots), dust storms, and tracking the advance and retreat of seasonal ice caps. ASE allows THEMIS to collect a large volume of additional data, more than can be transmitted due to bandwidth constraints, and quickly analyze it to determine which images are of the highest priority (such as an image containing a thermal anomaly) or to transmit only the essential information, such as the location of a detection (such as the edge of the polar cap). Spacecraft autonomy is a requirement on certain deep-space missions, where operating time is short in a hostile environment, such as a Europa orbiter, icy satellite submersible, or Titan aerobot. The ability to detect and respond to dynamic events (e.g., active volcanism) would greatly enhance mission science return. This work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract to NASA. Special thanks to C. M. Stevens and A. B. Chmielewski.

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