NASA s Intelligent Synthesis Environment Program Revolutionizing the Agency s Engineering and Science Practice

Transcription

1 The Voice of the Customer NASA s Intelligent Synthesis Environment Program Revolutionizing the Agency s Engineering and Science Practice An AES PAL Technical Quarterly Journal Robert D. Braun, Ph.D., Chief Engineer NASA Intelligent Synthesis Environment Program To support several objectives of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration s (NASA s) Provide Aerospace Products and Capabilities crosscutting process, the Intelligent Synthesis Environment (ISE) was established as a NASA Office of Aerospace Technology (OAT) functional initiative in FY This NASA pursuit is centered upon cost and delivery time reduction, innovative approaches to mission development, integrated technology planning, and improving the Agency s engineering capability. The focus of the ISE functional initiative is to research, develop, acquire, validate, demonstrate, and implement revolutionary engineering and science tools and processes for the design, development, and execution of NASA s missions. This initiative spans years, and its revolutionary capability, when fully deployed, will function as an advanced, networked collaboration of geographically distributed entities defining, designing, and executing NASA s missions. Guided by ISE s strategic vision ( this collaboration will be in an immersive, multi-sensory virtual environment in which humans and analytical models can interact in a computationally rich simulation of the complete mission life-cycle. The ISE Program is a five-year, focused Agency program to provide the foundation for achieving this long-term engineering and science vision, and to lay the groundwork for follow-on activities in this area. The program seeks to radically change the manner in which NASA designs, develops, and operates its flight systems. This program will demonstrate significant progress toward the ISE strategic vision by developing innovative and revolutionary design technologies, validating these technologies through application to a specific set of NASA Enterprise challenges, and infusing these advances within the NASA design culture. The primary customers for ISE-developed technology are first the Agency s strategic Enterprises, then national industry and other government agencies. Current Agency Design Practice The techniques employed within NASA s strategic Enterprises for the design, development, and operation of its flight systems do not employ distributed collaborative capabilities. In general, mission requirements definition and conceptual design are based on well-established systems engineering practices. Significant focus is given to system performance issues and assessment of the more standard engineering discipline analyses. Cost, risk, and technology assessment employs parametric methods during the conceptual design phase. Operational assessments are performed at low fidelity. In addition, over the years, each NASA Center has developed its own suite of in-house design tools, making systems integration and collaboration among the NASA Centers difficult and timeintensive. The formal optimization of designs is generally not attempted or completed with performance (not life-cycle cost or risk) as the objective function of the numerical process. The 15-year vision includes the evaluation and optimization of design attributes across the complete life-cycle. NASA s present preliminary and detailed design practices are based on gaining a higherfidelity understanding of the attractive conceptual design options and rapidly Advanced Enterprise Solutions 2001 Integrated Enterprise Winter Vol. 2, No. 1 Page 2

2 The strategic goal of the ISE Program is to develop the capability for personnel at dispersed geographic locations to work together in an immersive virtual environment, using computer simulations to model the complete life-cycle of a product/ mission before commitments are made to produce physical products. downselecting to a single reference concept. Higher-fidelity modeling techniques are employed which generally rely on different data types from those being used in the conceptual design phase. As such, much of the conceptual vehicle descriptive information must be redefined in the preliminary and detailed design phases. Once concept downselection occurs, formal design drawings are prepared. These drawings are placed under configuration control and become the governing mechanism for design geometry. In these design phases, preliminary cost estimates are often prepared based on comparison with estimates from previous related designs, and are updated based on metrics regarding work completed to date. Physical prototypes and test models for subsystem components are required. Often, numerous updates to these mechanical and electrical models must be made. A significant fraction of most NASA hardware development cost is incurred as a result of the test and systems engineering aspects of flight system development. In operations, the vehicle s performance is used to verify the design specifications. For complex systems, it is only here that the vehicle s true cost is ascertained. At present, it is exceedingly difficult to include operational modeling (in particular cost and risk assessment) as part of the earlier design phases. The ISE 15-year vision includes the evaluation and optimization of design attributes across the complete life-cycle. When fully implemented, a large portion of new mission and system evaluations will be completed through simulation, with a greatly reduced dependence on physical test. Mission and system decisions would be based on highfidelity cost, schedule, and risk optimization. Many evaluations would be performed with an immersive environment capability, with the participation of geographically dispersed teams. With use of this system, rework would be largely eliminated, resulting in significant cost and schedule savings. ISE Program Objectives The NASA Office of Aerospace Technology (OAT) Enterprise is focused on long-term, high-risk, high-payoff endeavors in its mission to maintain U.S. preeminence in aerospace research and technology. In support of this mission, a major OAT goal is to pioneer technology innovation in order to enable a revolution in aerospace systems. The Space Science, Earth Science, and Human Exploration and Development of Space Enterprises each have similar technology innovation goals. ISE contributes to all of these Agency Enterprise strategic goals. The strategic goal of the ISE Program is to develop the capability for personnel at dispersed geographic locations to work together in an immersive virtual environment, using computer simulations to model the complete life-cycle of a product/mission before commitments are made to produce physical products. This goal directly supports the objectives of OAT s technology innovation goal, as well as other Enterprise technology goals. The stated objectives of OAT s goal to Pioneer technology innovation by enabling a revolution in aerospace systems are: Develop advanced engineering tools, processes, and culture to enable rapid, high-confidence, and cost-efficient design of revolutionary systems Develop revolutionary technologies and technology solutions to enable fundamentally new aerospace system capabilities and missions The ISE Program objectives are directly derived from this OAT goal. It will provide a state-of-the-art synthesis environment to test and validate mature ISE technologies prior to infusion into practice. The technologies and capabilities developed in the ISE Program will be tested and verified through specific Enterprise-focused test applications, each of which are defined as an integrated analytical capability used by a geographically distributed team to design, develop, and/or operate enterprise missions. ISE will work closely with NASA s four strategic enterprises to define and develop these prototype test Advanced Enterprise Solutions 2001 Integrated Enterprise Winter Vol. 2, No. 1 Page 3

3 applications. To date, three prototype test applications have been developed to a level of sufficient maturity to be characterized as being in an implementation phase. These test applications focus on Reusable Space Transportation System design and development (in support of the Aerospace Technology), International Space Station assembly and operations, and Shuttle and Ground Processing activities (in support of Human Exploration and Development of Space). ISE technology validation is also planned for applications focused on the Agency s Earth and Space Science Enterprises. ISE Program Organization As shown in the following figure, the ISE Program consists of four major elements, or product lines: Life-Cycle Simulation, Environment, Product Integration, and Cultural Infusion. These four program elements are integrated through a rigorous systems engineering approach to program management. These four program elements are integrated through a rigorous systems engineering approach to program management. Figure 1. ISE Work Breakdown Structure The ISE Life-Cycle Simulation element is responsible for developing integrated lifecycle design and analysis tools with a focus on cost, risk, and probabilistic modeling. Through this program element, a diverse set of life-cycle engineering tools that can be seamlessly integrated to provide unprecedented computational speed, fidelity, and reliability will be acquired, researched, procured or developed, and validated. This element consists of both the suite of life-cycle design and analysis tools for use within ISE and the modeling of design and development processes, defining the life-cycle, for execution within the ISE. The ISE Environment element is responsible for developing the computational framework that enables collaborative design. This element will provide the advanced design environment and support to the infrastructure required to enable a revolutionary engineering and science capability. This element consists of: Advanced Enterprise Solutions 2001 Integrated Enterprise Winter Vol. 2, No. 1 Page 4

4 A collaborative infrastructure (virtual co-location capabilities, and a secure virtual private network that allows distributed teams to work together) A systems architecture (a dynamically evolvable, secure, common computational framework that enables non-sequential, seamless integration of life-cycle analysis tools) User interfaces (an advanced, interactive multi-media and fully immersive environment) Maintenance and operations support functions The ISE Product Integration element is responsible for providing integrated validation of ISE technology throughout the formulation, development, and operation phases of the design life-cycle. This element consists of the core integrated product set (a set of common integrated products whose components were developed or acquired by the Life- Cycle Simulation or Environment elements), Enterprise-specific capabilities, and the test, verification, and validation aspects of product delivery. Through this program element, technical agreements between ISE and the NASA Enterprises are developed and executed. The ISE Program implementation strategy is to produce a sequence of ISE technology capability builds that proceed as a sequence of definition, development, and test phases. The ISE Cultural Infusion element is responsible for infusing ISE technology advances throughout the Agency and disseminating those advances throughout industry and academic communities. This element consists of collaboration and teaming processes and methodologies, as well as measurement and assessment techniques to be used to gauge ISE Program success and to adjust ISE Program development strategy, learning systems, and centers both at NASA Centers and in collaboration with colleges and universities. A fundamental ISE goal is to infuse information technology advances into NASA s engineering and science programs. To this end, ISE plans to leverage computational advances and other products from industry, universities, research laboratories, and other NASA programs (such as Intelligent Systems, High-Performance Computing and Communications, and the Information Technology Base). ISE is an Agency program that will establish alliances and consortia with related efforts in Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Energy (DOE), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Science Foundation (NSF), industry, and universities to achieve its objective. ISE Program Integration An integrated approach to ISE program management is required for success. A rigorous program integration function is required to ensure that ISE products developed in the Life-Cycle Simulation and Environment elements are compatible for integration within the Product Integration element. In addition, a balance among the near-term needs of the Enterprise-specific prototype applications (within the Product Integration element) and the strategic requirements of the Life-Cycle Simulation and Environment elements is required. To enable integration among ISE developers, integrators, and users, a program integration process has been developed. Within the ISE Program, the Life-Cycle Simulation and Environment elements are responsible for developing ISE capabilities. These program elements provide integratable products to the Core Integrated Product Set within the Product Integration element. Once delivered, the Core Integrated Product Set Team integrates these Life-Cycle Simulation and Environment products into a sequence of ISE capability builds, tested and validated by the Enterprise-specific prototype application teams. Life-Cycle Simulation and Environment development capabilities fall into one of two general classes: Strategic and Enterprise-requested. Strategic developments are activities pursued toward the long-range objectives of the program element and are targeted to significantly advance the state of the art in advanced engineering environment and synthesis technology. Enterprise-requested development activities are efforts specifically Advanced Enterprise Solutions 2001 Integrated Enterprise Winter Vol. 2, No. 1 Page 5

5 targeted to Enterprise-specific prototype test applications in the implementation phase of their life-cycle. For ISE program success, a balance is required between these strategic and enterprise-requested developments. Program Strategy The ISE Program implementation strategy is to produce a sequence of ISE technology capability builds that proceed as a sequence of definition, development, and test phases. The Life-Cycle Simulation and Environment elements are responsible for developing technologies for each ISE capability build. Capability delivery to the Product Integration element occurs in a series of steps throughout the development phase, followed by integration and testing of each ISE capability build. In this manner, as part of the exit criteria for deployment of each ISE advanced engineering environment and synthesis system, the test and validation criteria will be met through the Enterprise-specific prototype test applications. The Cultural Infusion element is responsible for training and measurement of assessment activities related to each ISE capability build. Over the course of the program, these capability builds will improve in both breadth (sheer number of ISE capabilities drawn from the Life-Cycle Simulation and Environment elements) and fidelity (modeling accuracy of ISE engineering and science capabilities). The ISE Program will leverage research and development (R&D) investments through the use of cooperative agreements and cost-shared contracts when possible. By encouraging some amount of cost sharing in high-risk, longer-term R&D, ISE can both leverage the national investments in this revolutionary capability and accelerate the implementation of enabling technologies. NASA s Intelligent Synthesis Environment (ISE) Program is a focused technology development activity that will revolutionize the manner in which the Agency designs and develops its missions. A program-level acquisition strategy has been developed to minimize redundancy, streamline the acquisition process, and improve program efficiency. The ISE Program will stimulate (1) cost-sharing from industry; (2) a family of universities performing leading edge research in advanced synthesis development technologies; (3) leveraging of NASA and other government agency R&D programs; and (4) technology commercialization through broad technical teams capable of solving both the technical hurdles and the implementation and certification issues. A systems engineering and integration contract will be awarded in FY This contract will provide systems engineering support to ensure integration compatibility of the various ISE hardware and software components. Summary NASA s Intelligent Synthesis Environment (ISE) Program is a focused technology development activity that will revolutionize the manner in which the Agency designs and develops its missions. The program will provide an advanced engineering simulation capability through research, development, test, and validation of a suite of life-cycle simulation tools and a synthesis environment for distributed, collaborative design. When fully deployed, this revolutionary capability will function through an immersive, multisensory virtual environment in which humans and models can interact in a computationally rich simulation of the complete mission life-cycle. The ISE program is comprised of a balance of near-term and long-term technology development activities and is focused on demonstrating the merit of this design technology through engineering breakthroughs in a specific set of NASA Enterprise applications. Advanced Enterprise Solutions 2001 Integrated Enterprise Winter Vol. 2, No. 1 Page 6