Procedures for Flight and Ground Operations Using International Standards

[rdale]

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110016864_2011017763.pdf

Imagine astronauts using the same Interactive Electronic Technical   
Manuals (IETM's) as the ground personnel who assemble or maintain their flight hardware, and having all of that data interoperable with design, logistics, reliability analysis, and training. Modern international standards and their corresponding COTS tools already used in other industries provide a good foundation for streamlined technical publications in the space industry. These standards cover everything from data exchange to product breakdown structure to business rules flexibility. Full Product Lifecycle Support (PLCS) is supported. The concept is to organize, build once, reuse many ways, and integrate. This should apply to all future and some current launch vehicles, payloads, space stations/habitats, spacecraft, facilities, support equipment, and retrieval ships.

[OpsAnalyst]

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110016864_2011017763.pdf

Imagine astronauts using the same Interactive Electronic Technical   
Manuals (IETM's) as the ground personnel who assemble or maintain their flight hardware, and having all of that data interoperable with design, logistics, reliability analysis, and training. Modern international standards and their corresponding COTS tools already used in other industries provide a good foundation for streamlined technical publications in the space industry. These standards cover everything from data exchange to product breakdown structure to business rules flexibility. Full Product Lifecycle Support (PLCS) is supported. The concept is to organize, build once, reuse many ways, and integrate. This should apply to all future and some current launch vehicles, payloads, space stations/habitats, spacecraft, facilities, support equipment, and retrieval ships.

Beautifully captured, visionary and on target.

A professional/personal historical footnote only - we made a run at this in 1998, for ISS.  The international standards weren't there yet but the IETMs standard for the DoD was and the benefits of precisely the kind of interoperability you describe were already well-documented as you mention, even then.  Would've completely overhauled ops and sustaining engineering in particular.   Spent quite a bit of Boeing's internal R&D money on this, as I recall; they had just merged with McDonnell Douglas and the idea originally came from a Director there.  Ran afoul of virtually every NASA organization that saw themselves as having skin in the game - some much worse than others.  ISSP itself (involving multiple centers and sites) and MOD come to mind, but there were others.  Of course, this bright idea surfaced right when NASA and the rest of the IPs were in the worst throes of development and integration.  Not a good environment for "disruptive technology" - though I'd argue it might be the very best one, too.

This was a part of a much larger attempt to create an integrated operations, training, and sustaining engineering approach based on military integrated training systems, for one. It was a three-year losing battle.  Since I was managing Flight Operations for ISS on the Boeing side of things I couldn't very well walk away from the program, so I blamed almost all of it on MOD and found a way to extract myself from day-to-day dealings with the Directorate.  I left it entirely in 2001, metaphorically breaking my sword over my knee in dramatic fashion and swearing I'd never return.  Just a wee bit intemperate. 

But times and people change - me among them, I hope.  Through all of last year I could frequently be found walking the halls of the 8th floor and both the current and former Directors (of those old days) are among my closest colleagues and collaborators. Never say never.

All that said, I still see no indication that NASA's ready for this although to be fair, I've never discussed it with Paul Hill - he's had his hands full for the past two years and is still pressing on rearchitecting MOD.  My role there was in an advisory capacity for other issues; it would never have occurred to me. Still, one of the huge benefits of this system (in addition to the ones you describe) is that changes are propagated throughout, saving a tremendous amount so time and reducing potential error in updating and integration of technical information.  Managing so-called "change traffic" remains a huge issue for all ground ops systems.

Of more interest to me these days is that these issues are increasingly relevant to the FAA, as it regulates commercial spaceflight and must struggle with all the issues involved with ground systems.  Among it's challenges is integrating commercial spaceflight into existing management processes for the NAS and the NGATS (National Airspace System and Next Generation Air Transportation System, respectively, for the non-FAA savvy folk reading this.)  And many of the common air carriers already use IETMs.

Dang it, you've given me all kinds of ideas....