Navigation & Mission Design support systems are complex systems that perform many functions through an array of tools. Some of these functions include, trajectory design and control, navigation, product generation, and product delivery. The tools are a mixture of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, government off-the-shelf (GOTS) software, and “glue-ware” that run on a variety of platforms and operating systems.

This complexity proves to be challenging when trying to integrate a Flight Dynamics System (FDS) into the Mission Operations Center (MOC). The system must be handed over to the Flight Operations Team (FOT) for routine operations, and the FOT operators must be trained to run each tool in the MOC on a variety of workstations. There would be a very large learning curve for the FOT operators if the system were unintuitive and cumbersome.

In addition, dozens of products must be produced and delivered with these tools in a time-critical fashion to support flight operations and instrument planning activities. Therefore, the Navigation and Mission Design Branch (FDAB) leverages the use of autonomy in its systems to make routine operation of the systems easier, faster, and more manageable. They incorporate smart tools that can take the operator out of the decision loop for routine consistency checks and quality assurance activities that are traditionally performed by an expert analyst.

One example of a highly automated Flight Dynamics System is the Terra FDS. Launched in December 1999, Terra has been successfully supported by the FOT using an automated FDS that was designed as a joint effort between the NMDB and the Mission Analysis Branch (MAB, Code 583). The Terra FDS consists of a wide variety of tools. They include Satellite Tool Kit (STK), FreeFlyer, Matlab, and a GOTS attitude system. They are running on HP, SUN, and PC platforms. The automation system, called autoProducts, is used to provide data distribution among these diverse systems, interface the system to external entities, format products, and archive data. The graphical user interface for autoProducts is the only interface the FOT must use. This eliminates the need for routine operators to know the individual interfaces for the many underlying tools. However, expert users still have the capability of using the underlying tools to access settings not available to the routine operator in autoProducts.