AMO EXPRESS: A Command and Control Experiment for Crew Autonomy

NASA is investigating a range of future human spaceflight missions, including both Mars-distance and Near Earth Object (NEO) targets. Of significant importance for these missions is the balance between crew autonomy and vehicle automation. As distance from Earth results in increasing communication delays, future crews need both the capability and authority to independently make decisions. However, small crews cannot take on all functions performed by ground today, and so vehicles must be more automated to reduce the crew workload for such missions. NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems Program funded Autonomous Mission Operations (AMO) project conducted an autonomous command and control experiment on-board the International Space Station that demonstrated single action intelligent procedures for crew command and control. The target problem was to enable crew initialization of a facility class rack with power and thermal interfaces, and involving core and payload command and telemetry processing, without support from ground controllers. This autonomous operations capability is enabling in scenarios such as initialization of a medical facility to respond to a crew medical emergency, and representative of other spacecraft autonomy challenges. The experiment was conducted using the Expedite the Processing of Experiments for Space Station (EXPRESS) rack 7, which was located in the Port 2 location within the U.S Laboratory onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Activation and deactivation of this facility is time consuming and operationally intensive, requiring coordination of three flight control positions, 47 nominal steps, 57 commands, 276 telemetry checks, and coordination of multiple ISS systems (both core and payload). Utilization of Draper Laboratory’s 1 Computer Scientist, Space Systems Operations, NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center /MS 166, AIAA Non-Member. 2 ASO Project Lead, Space Systems Operations, NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center /MS 166, AIAA Non-Member. 3 Principle Investigator, Intelligent System Division, NASA Ames Research/MS 269-1, AIAA Non-Member. 4 ISS Payload Rack Officer, Engineering Operations, NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center /MS 166, AIAA Non-Member. 5 ASO Project Lead, Spacecraft Software Engineering Branch, NASA Johnson Space Center/MS ER6, AIAA Non-Member 6 Software Engineer, Spacecraft Software Engineering Branch, NASA Johnson Space Center/MS ER6, AIAA Non-Member.