Robert Hoffman/Polar Project Scientist Barbara Giles/Polar Deputy Project Scientist Polar Project Status October, 2002

Robert Hoffman/Polar Project ScientistBarbara Giles/Polar Deputy Project Scientist

Polar Project Status October,

2002

PWG Project Status / 23 October 2002 Pg 2

State of the Spacecraft

• The Polar spacecraft and instruments are healthy. Only the plasma wave instrument and the MICS sensor portion of CAMMICE have suffered major faults; PWI now operates only during eclipse.

• Polar has initiated semi-annual attitude maneuvers to extend orbit normal operations for auroral imaging and optimize fuel usage.

• At ecliptic normal, despun platform control and auroral viewing is limited to an ~4.5 hour segment of each 17 hour orbit.

CAMMICE, CEPPAD, EFI, HYDRA, MFE, PIXIE, PWI, SEPS,TIDE, TIMAS, UVI, VIS

March 18, 2002 – half flip to ecliptic normalFall 2002 – half flip to orbit normalSpring 2003 – full flip to orbit normal for southern winter auroral viewingFall 2003 – half flip to ecliptic normal (permanent)


Status of the Science

• Polar completed a prolonged observation campaign through the dayside equatorial magnetopause region with unprecedented high-temporal and spatial resolution. Now conducting a similar campaign across the nightside equatorial magnetosphere.

• Polar, IMAGE, Cluster, Wind and Geotail will hold a collaborative workshop on the dayside magnetopause and cusp at Yosemite in Feb. 2003.

• Polar’s auroral science progressed to studies of the conjugate aurora. Some initial findings:

– Onset brightening first seen in southern hemisphere with northern hemisphere onset detected ~1 min. later

– Expansive phase brighter in southern hemisphere but located ~45min earlier in local time in the north.

• A JGR special section on "Causes of the Aurora" will appear soon.

More than ten "great" conjugate events have been captured including this substorm onset on 1 Nov 2001

thermal plasma, accelerated by circularly polarized waves, is regularly seen in the dayside boundary layers


Mission Operation and Ground Data Processing: Then and

Now

~7.625$M

4.144$M

<4.172$M

Polar, Wind and Geotail mission operations and ground data processing combined


Status of the Mission Operation and Ground Data Processing Re-engineering

1. Unattended spacecraft contacts for data playbacks

2. Cross-training of flight operations personnel

3. Re-hosting the CMS for security and obsolescence issues

4. Re-hosting of NRT data service

5. Automation and re-hosting of KP processing

6. Simplifying online distribution of LZ and ancillary data

7. Automation of CD production

8. Re-hosting of the project web site

9. Streamlining NRT to include LZ processing and QL

FOT costReduction

CHDF and SPOF cost reduction

Future of Wind

9 re-engineering tasks were originally identified:

Completed, in “ring-out” phaseIn acceptance testingStartedIn planning phase, initial testing complete


Ground Data Processing:What was Lost? What was

Gained?

• ISTP services no longer provided: – systematic collection of data products from associated missions– KP CD distribution (impact is to Russian and South American data repositories)– dedicated program assistance center – off-hours data processing or problem response– automated data pushing to clients– quality control services of the ISTP/CDHF– problem response and quality control services of the ISTP/SPOF

• Services improved: – open ftp access to the full data set– HTR data produced in addition to KP, software easily updated – automated processing brings faster turn around of products

With respect to Polar, Wind and Geotail, all data services previously required from the ISTP/CDHF and ISTP/SPOF have been retained.


Who Gets the Credit: The Ground Data Processing Re-

engineering team

The success of the re-engineering effort is due to the cooperative efforts of several groups at GSFC who provided full- and part-time programming, system admin, design and management expertise.

632 Bobby Candey

696/583 David Berger

587 Ryan Boller

587 Marlo Maddox

587 Jim Byrnes

587 Chris Howard

423 Jeff Lubelczyk

632 Rick Burley

632 Tami Kovalick

632 Natalie Jaquith

690 Sandy Kramer

contr. Jim Legg

The core team:

With specific tasks & consulting by:


Long Term Funding Profile

• The PWG infrastructure held within CSOC has decreased dramatically over the past year. Some CSOC cost estimates for FY03 do not reflect this decrease.

• Conducting future mission operations under the current contracting mechanism does not appear to be economically feasible under the current long term funding profile.


Contracting for Future Mission Services

Option Roadblock Issues Status

Direct contract with Honeywell

Waiver of requirement for transfer to educational or research related location

1.Direct contract not permissible w/o extended competition cycle

2.ID/IQ, permission to add task to MIDEX ID/IQ or start new ID/IQ

Preferred method: currently pursuing ID/IQ and waiver.

Contract with educational or research location

May want waiver on 6-month “pull-out” requirement

Contractual and management layer between NASA and MO team

USRA and Capital College are willing

Remain with CSOC

1.$$$2.Uncertainty regarding post-

CSOC3.Operations reliability and safety4.Changes remain costly and slow

Negotiations continue with regard to cost and staffing levels

A six-month NOI to remove mission operations services from the CSOC contract was submitted. Arrangements for continued operations are being actively pursued.


Regarding Data Availability

• ISTP required special event archiving, rather than the full data set, as has become common with recent missions. Data accessibility was the responsibility of the project.

• Many Polar instrument teams have adjusted their data archiving and accessibility as is possible within their IT infrastructure and funding.

– Continuous HTR data from PWI, TIMAS, and TIDE. CAMMICE and CEPPAD soon.

– TIDE, PWI and MFE provide interactive data processing via the web.

• Additional progress can be made over the next year:

– HYDRA has HTR data software, needs to convert format to CDF.

– UVI, VIS and PIXIE could archive continuous HTR rather than events.

– MFE should update IT infrastructure and/or PWG project should produce MFE KP.

– PWG project should create and host software library for access to LZ

– PWG project could encourage and/or host additional interactive data processing.

• Progress depends on:– MO&DA contract mechanism that allows appropriate control over PWG re-engineering.

– Small augmentations to team funding for specific data processing/accessibility tasks.


Summary

• The Polar spacecraft and instruments are healthy.

• Science progress over the past two years has been particularly robust. Prospects for further breakthroughs with respect to substorm and reconnection physics appears very strong.

• Science funding has been relatively stable. FY02 funding was, on average, 90% of FY01 levels. Funding profiles for FY03 are budgeted at FY02 levels.

• The new mission operations and ground data processing systems are operating and serving the science community well. Several important re-engineering tasks remain to be completed by the end of December 02.

• Conducting future mission operations under the current contracting mechanism does not appear to be economically feasible under the current long term funding profile.

• A six-month notice, effective Sept. 30, for discontinuation of CSOC services was submitted.

• Arranging for an alternate contracting mechanism for mission operations remains difficult. Several avenues are being pursued.

• A plan to implement additional data accessibility improvements is under development.

Robert Hoffman/Polar Project ScientistBarbara Giles/Polar Deputy Project Scientist

Backup Slides


Summary: Then and Now

~7.625$M2.6$M

Polar, Wind and Geotail mission operations and ground data processing combined


Review of the ISTP Data System(an independent entity to serve the worldwide SEC

community)

In addition to • data processing and distribution services for GGS (Polar, Wind, Geotail) & IMP-8,• data distribution services for SOHO and Cluster,• operations and science coordination,

ISTP served as a one-stop data source by • consolidating and distributing data for 15 additional spacecraft, observatories and T&M programs• providing extensive data and media integrity and quality services.

ISTP Real-time System(IRTS)

Telemetry Processor(LZPR)

ISTP CDHF/IDDS

ISTPCentral Data

Handling Facility(CDHF)

Key ParameterIntegration and Testing

(KITT)

ISTP Data Distribution

System(IDDS)

US ClusterScience Data Center

(USCSDC)

NSSDCCDAWeb

DPS

Heritage IMP-8System

Wind

Polar

Geotail

SOHO

IMP-8

LZ

data

data

LZ &data

LZ &data

Ancillary Computationsof Ephemerides Real Time

Key Parameters &High Resolution Data

electronic transfers

CD-ROMS12k/yr

computed for Polar, Wind and Geotail

for health & safety

Wind/KONUSgamma ray burstearly warning

Wind real time KP

Science Planning and

Operations Facility (SPOF)

Instrument and science teams

ingestion of data for 12 collaborative programs


Initial Courses of Action

• The ISTP project office was disbanded and reduction of past ISTP activities occurred during October and November of 2001.

• ISTP ground system services immediately reduced were: – QuickLook data processing for special requests only, – key parameter CD distribution reduced from ~12,300 to 156 per year, – no key parameter re-processing, – no key parameter software updates, – no ground based or collaborative mission data processing or ingestion, – no dedicated program assistance center, – no system software updates excepting security patches, – no test or development environment, and – no off-hours data processing or problem response– services of the ISTP SPOF and Command Management System were

consolidated with the MOC and the project scientist's office.

Note: Items in blue have been restored within the new PWG data processing environment


Initial Courses of Action

• Contacted instrument teams regarding requirements for various operations and data services.

• Produced prioritized requirements document for Polar, Wind and Geotail. (available at http://tide.gsfc.nasa.gov/studies/POLAR/Polar_Ops_specs_25Jun02.pdf)

• Conducted six feasibility studies for alternative approaches 1) the present ground system management under CSOC (2 studies) 2) SPDF at GSFC under the direction of Bob McGuire 3) LASP at U Colorado under the direction of Bill Peterson4) UC Berkeley under the direction of Bob Lin 5) the NSSTC under the direction of Dennis Gallagher


Results of Feasibility Studies

The following conclusions and actions resulted from the review of the studies:

• More software and system re-engineering needed to be pursued than provided for by the CSOC/CDHF study and CSOC estimates for flight operations.

• Eight re-engineering projects were identified to reduce the number of FTEs by three-quarters.

• The re-engineering work should be performed under local control.

• The UC Berkeley capabilities for hosting mission operations remain of interest.

It was determined that a consolidation of all systems under the PWG Mission Operations Center (MOC) under an ID/IQ contract, as suggested by the SPDF study, offered the most cost effective solution with the least disruption to flight operations and the least risk to spacecraft health and safety.


Plan for Re-engineering

Project Office

PWG Data Processing

Real Time decommutationPlayback decommutation into Quick Look

Level Zero file generation

Key Parameter processing

Online Data distribution and archive Key Parameter (KP) ingestion

Level Zero CD production

KP CD production

Receipt of instrument commands

Web server maintenance

E/PO

Despun Platform Operations PlanningScience Planning

LZ quality control

KP quality control

Web page maintenance

Mission Operations Center (MOC)

Flight Operations Team (FOT)

Command Management System (CMS)

Flight Dynamics Facility (FDF)

Deep Space Network (DSN) Scheduling

Spacecraft & Instrument Engineering

IT security and network operations

Instrument Teams

NSSDC/Code 630

Level Zero deep archive

CDAWeb KP access and archive

Science, science, science

Science Management

Instrument commanding

Ancillary data processing

25 EP reduced to 13 EP

41 EP reduced to 3 EP

5 EP reduced to 1.5 EP

2 EP


Re-engineering tasks with greatest short term

payoff

1. Unattended spacecraft contacts for data playbacks

2. Cross-training of flight operations personnel

3. Re-hosting the CMS for security and obsolescence issues

4. Re-hosting of NRT data service

5. Automation and re-hosting of KP processing

6. Simplifying online distribution of LZ and ancillary data

7. Automation of CD production

8. Streamlining NRT to include LZ processing and QL

Reduction of FOT

Elimination of CHDF

For the future of Wind


Cross-training of FOT Personnel

6-7 console operators

2 CMS operators

2 spacecraft engineers

1 flight ops lead

1 DSN scheduler

4-5 console operators

GroundSystem

Engineer

Instrument Engineer

Flight opslead

DSN scheduler

Current After

1 instrument engineer

1 ground system engineer Spacecraft Engineers

still to be implemented


Re-hosting the CMS for Security and Obsolescence

Issues

Notes:• Core CMS software remains the same.

spof1.gsfc.nasa.govoutside firewall, receives/relays

commands & verifications

Current After

CMSinside firewall, verifies

command sequences, etc.,on older VMS machine

Decnet “push”,identified as security risk

spof7.gsfc.nasa.govoutside firewall, receives/relays

commands & verifications

CMSinside firewall, verifies

command sequences, etc.,re-hosted on new PC

TCP/IP FORMATSsecure relay across firewall

Bldg. 2 Bldg. 3

Bldg. 3Bldg. 3


Unattended Spacecraft Contacts for Data Playbacks

Notes:• Fewer attended contacts/fewer “double” attended contacts may mean less convenient or

delayed command scheduling.• Errors at DSN sites will mean result in several hours of data loss for Polar and several days of

data loss for Wind.

6-8 console operators,covering 24x7, typically 4 shifts of two operators,Wind: 1 contact/3 days,Polar: 4 contacts/day,All attended contacts

4 console operators,covering 16x5,

Wind: 1 contact/3 days,Polar: 3-4 contacts/day,

TBD number of unattended contacts

Current Proposed

still to be implemented


New Science Data System Overview

The following Polar, Wind and Geotail services provided by ISTP were retained:• Near Real Time (NRT) data, open line access• Quicklook (spacecraft playback) data, online access • Level Zero data processing, online and CD distribution• Geotail Sirius data processing, online access• Key Parameter data processing, online and limited CD distribution• Ancillary data processing, online access

ISTP Real-time System(IRTS)

Telemetry Processor(LZPR)

Polar/Wind/Geotail Data Processing

CDAWeb

Wind

Polar

Geotail

LZ

LZ

LZ &data

Instrument and science teamsLZ &

data

Ancillary Computationsof Emphemerides

Real Time datafor health & safety

Key Parameters &High Resolution Data

Project Scientist's OfficePolar platform operationsScience coordinationPWG web site

Quality control of data products

KP Ingested:CanopusSuperDARNSonderstromSESAMEGOES seriesLANL series

FASTSAMPEXACESOHOClusterIMAGEPolar HTR

electronic transfers

CD-ROMS4k/yr


Automation of KP Processing

Before Now

Notes :• Routine quality checking of KP file production will reside with instrument teams.• New high time resolution and Key Parameter software routines can be readily added by the

instrument teams to the software library.

TAE GUI interfaces on VAXto shift of operators

Custom software & Oracle on Dec Alpha control processing

Frozen software library

Extensive quality checking

Automated file processing

Consolidation to single machine with ready access to data

Software library converted tocollection of individual processes

Limited quality checking


Simplifying Online Data Distribution

Before Now

Notes:• Data access by open ftp• LZ data older than 2-3 months is gzip compressed• All data is public including NRT, QL, LZ, KP, ancillary

More Data:Magneto Optical Disks in cabinet

More Data:Magneto Optical Disks in jukebox

~2TB

Most Recent Data:magnetic disk

~.3TB

AMASS

workstation on open network - open ftp access

SCSI RAID w/ enough magnetic disk spacefor 3 months uncompressed LZ and ancillarydata plus older PWG LZ and ancillary data

in compressed format~2.5TB

Directory structure to mirror that ofISTP LZ CDroms

Polar-Wind-Geotail on-line data access

workstation on open network - controlled access


Automation of CD Production

Notes:• DVDs for Polar_all, Wind_all and Geotail_all distribution• Quality control of CD product to be performed by receiver; limited replacements possible

Before Now

several older control

machineswith Oracledatabase

several olderCD duplicators

several older CD writers

ISTP/IDDS

Custom and proprietary software for control , extensive cataloguing and quality control

New PCto control CDproduction equipment

New DVD/CD writer comboauto-loader for DVDauto-loader for CD

Automatic labeling of platter

Polar-Wind-Geotail DVD/CD Production

Simple scripting, less quality controlDVD for archiving, CDs to instrument teams


Streamlining NRT Processing to Include LZ and QL

Notes:• Software port process should be transparent to instrument teams.• File types and formats would remain identical..• Routine quality checking of LZ data files will reside with instrument teams.• Reprocessing/replacement of LZ data may be limited to 1-2 months after receipt of files.• There will be some data loss.

Wind/PolarNRT on older

microVaxs

Wind/Geotail QL & LZ

Bldg. 23

Bldg. 3

Before After

NRT for Wind & Polar rehosted to Dec Alpha

LZ for Wind & Polar rehosted to Dec Alpha


microVaxs


microVaxsWind/Polar NRT

(on older microVaxs)

Unix using LabView & OraclePolar QL & LZ

Bldg. 3Geotail QL & LZ


Schedule for Remaining Re-engineering Activities

Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr

2002

unattended spacecraft contacts for data playbacks

cross-training of flight operations personnel

transition to new CMS

CD system

streamlining NRT to include LZ and QL

burning in of new PWG data system

2003


Concerns on the Project Side

With Respect to Mission Operations:

• Can we find a contractual environment for operations that is affordable and legal?

• Can the re-engineered system collapse to an affordable Wind-only environment after Polar and Geotail end of missions.

• What is the minimum data recovery percentage acceptable in light of fiscal constraints imposed on extended mission programs.


Mass and energy coverage of the Polar particle

instrumentation packages

Polar remains the best instrumented spacecraft in the magnetosphere.


Exploring the Sun-Earth

SystemAn alliance of solar, heliospheric and geospace missions for the coordinated study of Sun-Earth system dynamics.


Alliance Objectives

The SEC Alliance of spacecraft will expand the scientific productivity of the individual missions by fostering joint scientific analyses of phenomena that originate at the sun, propagate through interplanetary space, and impact the Earth's magnetosphere and upper atmosphere.

Targeted objectives include:

• Understand the coronal causes of heliospheric disturbances

• Determine the evolution of disturbances within the heliosphere

• Understand the coupling of solar wind energy to geospace

• Understand the coupling of energy from the magnetosphere into the atmosphere


Alliance Activities

Sponsor analysis campaigns focused on specific science problems that bridge mission objectives. To date:• Energy transfer across the dayside magnetopause and through the cusp• Propagation of disturbances through interplanetary space

Sponsor opportunities for collaboration: • Yosemite 2002: Magnetospheric imaging workshop• Geospace Workshop - Feb 2002• Joint SOHO-ACE workshop - Mar 2002• Spring AGU 2002: special sessions sponsored by Alliance members• Tentative Fall 2002: Interplanetary disturbance propagation workshop• Yosemite 2003: The cusp and dayside magnetopause

Joint E/PO Activities• EOS Alliance article• Web home page• Aurora poster

• Flyers/pamphlets on popular SEC science topics• Updating/re-issuing popular ISTP products




Documents

Robert Hoffman/Polar Project Scientist Barbara Giles/Polar Deputy Project Scientist Polar Project Status October, 2002