Ontology-centred integration for space operations

As the size and complexity of projects involving integrated space operations continue to grow, there is a need to manage how the processes and data are utilized and stored. In particular, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Kennedy Space Center (KSC) has a wide repository of project management, scientific, and engineering data, which tend to be splintered across divisions and branches. Currently, operations-based data and processes are separate. Different repositories and formats exist, which makes it difficult for the engineer to semantically, and visually, connect data and models from these repositories. Ideally, project management model components for assembly operations should be connected to databases from Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models and/or system model components since such connections would enhance communications, interoperability, and exploration of project management and CAD models. In this paper, we introduce the use of ontologies to seamlessly integrate the data developed and organized by resource planning tools into standard project management documents with integrated cost, resource modelling and analysis, simulation and visualization. We explain the domain of project management and operations at NASA and then describe a new ontology-centred approach pioneered by the co-authors to link multiple, distributed operational facets together. The result is an evolving ‘shared conceptualization’ for NASA operations that will be used to evolve operations models and data into improved support of project management.