Making European Industry More Competitive Software

Michael Jones & Nestor Peccia Ground Segment Engineering Department, ESA Directorate of Operations and Infrastructure, ESOC, , Germany

or Europe to remain competitive, the capabilities of its industry in ground Foperations software must continue to grow. Building on the expertise of ESOC, the ultimate goal is a suite of ‘plug and play’ software that users could call on by selecting the various components from European suppliers.

Introduction ESA’s mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and to ensure that investment in the space sector continues to deliver benefits to Europe’s citizens. In practical terms, this means that ESA has to ensure that Europe’s space industry develops and maintains these capabilities. They must cover a wide range, spanning the space segment, launchers and ground segments. Another challenge is to supply space systems at competitive prices. Ambitious space programmes with limited budgets make this essential everywhere. Another significant aspect is the globalisation of the space business and the growth and improvements of technical standards that enable global inter- operation. To be a player in the world space market, European industry must offer competitive solutions. This article describes The Example of an initiative to develop and strengthen industry capabilities in operations software for the ground segment. This involves promoting reusable software products ESOC’s originally developed for ESA purposes. The effort began around 5 years ago with the SCOS-2000 mission control kernel. This initial effort was very successful and Operational is now being extended to the much wider palette of products forming the ESOC Ground Operations Software (EGOS). The article also draws together the various Software threads that make such an endeavour possible; these include standardisation and

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Working in the ESOC backup Mission Control Room

Risk reduction is another important advantage, since reused software has already been validated operationally. The idea then arises: why not encourage other spacecraft operators to use this software and take benefit of the investments already made? Linked to this is the consideration that suppliers of such software are also looking for business with other spacecraft operators, so this would open up new markets. Indeed, this could apply not only to ESOC’s suppliers, but also to any European company able to exploit the software. It follows that such ground segment technology harmonisation. – simulators: providing support for testing reuse could help to make European The ultimate aim is to encourage the the system and training the operations industry more competitive. emergence of a European suite of ground personnel; In fact, ESA has been doing this for operations software, from which users – flight dynamics: controlling the attitude many years via the licensing of a wide meet their needs in a ‘plug and play’ and orbit of the spacecraft; range of software developed for ESA manner by selecting components from – mission analysis: designing the mission purposes, although it was left to the European suppliers. for manoeuvres and flybys to achieve initiative of the licensees to exploit the mission aims. software, commercially or otherwise. Ground Segment Operations Software Furthermore, in the last 5 years or so, For many years, ESOC has been Much of this software is used and ESOC has been promoting certain developing high-quality software for its rigorously tested for the demanding tasks software as supported ‘products’. The seed core business of spacecraft operations. of preparing and supporting spacecraft for this was ESOC’s SCOS-2000 mission This includes software for: operations. Because of ESOC’s need to control kernel, but the idea has now been apply it to many missions, much of it was broadened. As described later, it will – mission control: command and control designed for reuse, as one of the most eventually include the full range of ground of the spacecraft; effective ways to increase productivity. systems software.

Reusable Software Reusable software has to be designed and developed for reuse from the outset. There is a rule of thumb that if more than about 20% of a software module has to be rewritten when reusing it, then it is more effective to design and rewrite the whole module from scratch. The challenge of developing reusable software is to stay well below this threshold. This can be achieved via various techniques, such as;

– allowing configurability via the setting of parameters or a via database; – allowing extension of functionality using software engineering techniques

Mimic Display from the MetOp Mission Control System, based on SCOS-2000. ESOC will support the Launch and Early Orbit Phase of Eumetsat’s MetOp weather satellites

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A session in ESOC’s Simulation Studio

operations systems, and the Telemetry & Telecommand Packet Utilisation Standard, ECSS-E-70-41, which identifies a set of services for using telecommand packets and telemetry source packets in the remote monitoring and control of payloads space systems.

These examples merely scratch the surface but the point is that software developed to support such standards is naturally reusable.

Early Days: MSSS and SCOS At ESOC, it has been the practice for some 30 years to use a generic mission control system as the basis for the control system of each mission. This was first done in the such as inheritance in object-oriented the form of observers, associates and mid-1970s with the Multi-Satellite methods. This allows the reused liaisons. Support System (MSSS). The basic software to remain unchanged, the The ECSS was established in 1993 to concepts of this system were that: additional functions being provided via develop a coherent, single set of standards the use of ‘derived classes’. for use in all design and development of – it could be configured to support several space systems in Europe. It involves ESA missions at the same time; Standardisation and the national space agencies, and, – it was table-driven. The data structures Another enabling factor for reusable importantly, it includes European industry of the commands and telemetry data of ground systems software is standardisa- under the umbrella of Eurospace. the each spacecraft were defined in tion. Space agencies and industry have Eurospace is a non-profit organisation that tables, so customisation to a new invested in engineering standardisation as fosters the development of space activities spacecraft could be done largely by a means of decreasing project risks and in Europe and promotes a better updating tables. reducing development and operations understanding of space industry-related costs. Risks are reduced because standard- issues. This means that, in ECSS, both the These were novel concepts for the time. isation offers proven and consolidated institutions and industry are stakeholders MSSS was highly successful and remained processes, methods and interfaces. Cost is in the standards. in use for well over 20 years. It was also reduced because standardisation permits CCSDS and ECSS have between them used as the basis for some systems reuse of processes, solutions and produced a large body of engineering developed commercially for other space- components. standards that are now in regular use, craft, in particular the Inmarsat Mission For space engineering, there are two particularly in ESA. A number of these Control System (MCS). main bodies concerned with standardisa- standards have allowed the development of The next MCS generation was the tion: the Consultative Committee for standard components (or infrastructure) Spacecraft Operations Control System Space Data Systems (CCSDS), and the for ground systems software. Examples (SCOS). The first generation SCOS-I was European Cooperation for Space are: developed in the mid-1980s and had a Standardisation (ECSS) centralised architecture based on VAX The CCSDS is an international – from the CCSDS, the Space Link minicomputers. Like MSSS, it was standardisation body primarily addressing Extension (SLE) services, which implemented mainly in FORTRAN. communications and data-handling provide standard interfaces to ground SCOS-I systems continue to support techniques for interoperability between stations, permitting one agency to use several major ESA missions: , different space agencies, and standardisa- the ground station of another; ERS-2 and . tion of space-related information – from the ECSS, standards of particular technologies. Today, membership of relevance are ECSS-E-70A, which is the Growing Maturity: SCOS-2000 CCSDS includes ten space agencies and top-level standard defining the process The successor to SCOS-I was SCOS-II, several other participating organisations in lifecycle of developing and using later renamed SCOS-2000. Early versions

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were used for the control system of the this gives the ESA Member States and system for spacecraft checkout. There is Titan probe, the control system bodies under their jurisdiction the right to also an example of reuse in a different for the launch and early orbit phase of have a licence to it free of charge. but related field to that for which it was -7, and a low-cost control system Secondly, continuity of support is originally developed. This came as an for the Teamsat young engineers’ satellite. guaranteed since SCOS-2000 is used by initiative from the ESA Directorate of The launches of all of these were ESA on all missions supported by ESOC. Science, which chose SCOS-2000 as a successfully supported in 1997. In the case In particular, the ESA Investment Plan platform for the Central Control System of Huygens, the system remained in use funds basic maintenance and keeping of supporting assembly, integration and until its successful landing on Titan in the product in step with evolution of the test activities on the Herschel/ January 2005. underlying technology and platforms. ESA platform and its payloads. Despite the similar name, SCOS-2000 is using SCOS-2000 on major programmes In the Eutelsat case, ‘NEO’ controls a was completely new. It used client server such as (launched in 2004, due to fleet of satellites from European, US and technology in a distributed system of Sun arrive at its target comet in 2014), Mars Russian manufacturers. NEO replaced a Solaris workstations. Designed using Express, and the Galileo ‘park’ of different control systems with a object-oriented methods, it was written in constellation of navigation satellites. Thus single solution based on the SCOS-2000 C++, and developed with the following the product necessarily has a long time platform. The NEO project also resulted in strategic aims: horizon. The promotion of SCOS-2000 a joint venture called ‘hifly©’ between two began in 2000 by: European companies, SciSys (UK) and – ease of configuration and/or customisa- GMV (E). According to the companies, tion, therefore lowering associated costs; – ensuring that experience with SCOS- hifly© product is an MCS solution for – functional richness, reducing the need 2000 and its technology was well spread commercial satellite operations that is for mission-dedicated functions and among ESOC’s frame contractors. The “powered by SCOS-2000”. lowering mission-specific costs; contractors carry out all the In the case of DLR’s German Space – scalability, allowing the system to be development of mission control system Operations Centre at Oberpfaffenhofen, adapted to missions of any size or for infrastructure and of mission control near Munich, SCOS-2000 was selected as any phase of a mission; systems at ESOC; a cost-effective solution to replace an – vendor independence, which reduces or – encouraging these contractors to use ageing Compaq/VAX architecture. avoids the need for periodic migration SCOS-2000 in their bids to other exercises as hardware platforms or customers within and beyond ESA; Expanding the Scope Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) – holding regular workshops to share It is clear that SCOS-2000 has become a software becomes obsolete. experience on the use of SCOS-2000 ‘best-selling’ software product, with some between its users; 70 licenses granted over the last 6 years. In All four aims have been achieved. – providing training courses. fact, it is now a world-leading MCS Vendor independence was fully achieved product. in 2002 with the introduction of a SCOS- As a result of these and other By 2002, it became obvious that there 2000 version that could run on either Sun measures, SCOS-2000 is now in use by were other candidate products, such as: Solaris or Linux platforms. many operators. The table shows that the overwhelming choice for the – ESOC’s generic simulator infrastructure Promoting SCOS-2000 operating system is Linux, which SIMSAT (Software Infrastructure for As a consequence of using SCOS-2000, resoundingly confirms the correctness of Modelling Satellites), which also has a costs of ESOC control systems have come the decision to make Linux one of the pedigree stretching back over 20 years; down by a factor of 2–3, and more in some SCOS-2000 operating systems. The list – the SLE Application Programmer cases. This reinforced the thoughts about includes several examples of using the Interface package, which provides a the possible wider use in the space sector. standard means of communic- SCOS-2000 had some clear advantages for ating with the ground station this. backend over the TCP/IP Firstly, it was classed by ESA as communications protocol, and ‘operational software’, which meant that also provides cross-support ESA owned the Intellectual Property capability with other agencies. Rights. According to the ESA Convention, It was also becoming clear that synergies could be achieved between the various products. Projects using SCOS-2000 outside of ESOC For example, SIMSAT was

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The envisaged future architecture of ESOC ground segments, including operations automation. EMS: ESTRACK Management System. FDS: Flight Dynamics System. G/S: ground station. MATIS: Mission Automation System. MCS: Mission Control System. MPS: Mission Planning System. NIS: Network Interface System. OPS: Operations Preparations System. STC: Station Computer. TC: telecommand. TM: telemetry

originally developed to run on MS Windows, which apart from limiting synergy with the UNIX/ Linux systems of SCOS-2000, also implied the support of a further information and communications technology infrastructure at ESOC.

Organisational Considerations Differences in organisational responsibility led to the divergences mentioned above, including the use of different platforms, different COTS software, and different software solutions for common problems This reorganisation had two main was set up, the process of expanding the such as logging and error handling. The effects. First, it put mission control, scope and coherence of the infrastructure various responsible units had independently simulator and ground station infrastructure has proceeded rapidly. Notable achieve- developed parts of the infrastructure software under the control of a single unit. ments have been: without considering potential common- This unit, the Data Systems Infrastructure alities in technology, design and Division, has the mandate to ensure – porting of the simulator infrastructure to implementation. consistency and synergy between Linux/PC platforms; In 2002, the management of ESOC’s infrastructure products. Secondly, it allows – the development of a new generation of Ground Systems Engineering Department that unit to focus on reuse, be it of telemetry and telecommand encoders, decided to add two new divisions: infrastructure or of software developed integrated in one package, TMTCS, specifically for particular families of and supporting the SLE services; – the Data Systems Infrastructure Division, missions. – extension of SCOS-2000 to support responsible for the implementation and multiple spacecraft. This is essential for maintenance of the generic mission data ESA/ESOC Ground Operations Software constellation missions such as Galileo system infrastructure, including mission In the 3 years since the new organisation and for future formation-flying missions. control systems, simulators and ground station backend software; – the Mission Data Systems Division, responsible for implementation and maintenance of mission control systems and simulators for missions. This division is also the counterpart to the ‘customer’, which for an ESA mission is represented by the flight control team and its management.

EGOS components, with layering into low-, middle- and high-level components. EDSS: EGOS Data Distribution System. GUI: Graphical User Interface. MAS: Mission Automation System. NIS: Network Interface System. OBSM: On-Board Software Management (System). SMF: Services Management Framework.

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How a system can be built up in alternative ways as ‘plug and play’. EGSE: electrical ground support equipment. HCI: Human- Computer Interface. OBSW: On-Board SoftWare. OMG: Object Management Group. SLE: Space Link Extension

Europe, including an overview of all planned institutional space technology programmes, with related strategic plans (‘roadmaps’). This is the European Space Technology Master Plan.

The idea, therefore, is to ensure that the R&D contributions of the partners are complementary, avoiding wasteful overlaps or the spreading of resources too thinly. In the ground systems software area, the problem of lack of strategic control had been evident for many years: many suppliers were producing incompatible solutions, even though they addressed the same problem. In the particular case of ground systems software, the harmonisation approach was done in three phases: This also enables server consolidation may even create new problems if the – reducing the number of servers; redevelopment is based on wrong 1.define, in agreement with the users, a – reengineering of EGOS components, assumptions or requirements. common system standard architecture involving the identification and layering with common requirements for the of common functions and services, with Technology Harmonisation identified blocks (‘modules’) in the the aim of reducing the amount of The process of devising an improved architecture; ‘middleware’ and low-level software, strategy for the evolution of European space 2.define standard interfaces between the and avoiding duplication. technology began in 2000 in response to models; a resolution at the ESA Ministerial Council 3. produce the needed solutions responding Work has started on a Mission of May 1999 entitled Shaping the Future to the common requirements and using Automation System (MATIS) and the of Europe in Space. This resolution the standard interfaces, reusing or ESTRACK Management System (EMS; included the statement “… the new and reengineering as far as possible ESTRACK is the ESA ground station demanding challenges of the 21st Century existing products. This, of course, is in network). call for a concerted European effort, so line with the ‘evolution not revolution’ that Europe achieves its fullest potential philosophy. Evolution not Revolution for international cooperation and world The general philosophy followed for competition”. This resulted in a The outputs of Phases 1 and 2 are EGOS is ‘evolution not revolution’. This Technology Harmonisation initiative. intended to be inputs to the ECSS emphasises reuse or, more broadly, Broadly speaking, its approach was to: standardisation process. reengineering of existing software. New The Steering Board of European products and product lines are developed – identify the technology needs for Technology Harmonisation on Ground to respond to new services or needs. European space programmes. These Systems Software was set up to oversee However, even in this case, available were set out in the European Space this plan. Contracts were let under ESA’s products are taken as the basis for new Technology Requirements Document also Technology Research Programme to carry product lines wherever feasible. Bearing referred to as Dossier 0. This covers out the work. The Steering Board has in mind that reusable software is in effect some 22 technology areas, one of representatives from ESA and national a repository of knowledge, we try to avoid which is ground systems software; agencies (ASI, CNES, DLR, BNSC, redevelopment from scratch, since this – make a consolidated plan of all relevant CDTI, ASA) and the European software risks losing this embedded knowledge and technology-development activities in industry (Critical, Dataspazio, GMV,

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LogicaCMG, Terma, SciSys, Siemens, The vision is that technology harmonisa- that standardisation brings, and having an VCS, ). tion of ground systems software will enable appropriate organisation to develop the Phase 1 has been completed, with a EGOS to become a European Ground products and apply them. The success has reviewed set of documents comprising the Operations System. also depended on strong cooperation with High-Level Requirements and the industry, in particular from ESOC’s in- architecture. Phase 2 is under way to Conclusions house suppliers, who have been active in define (as proposed standards) by the end The benefits that reusable software can selling solutions based upon ESOC of 2006 the following four major bring to an organisation like ESA have operations software products. The interfaces: been shown. A consequence is that other European Technology Harmonisation on spacecraft operators can use this software Ground Systems Software is expected to – monitoring and control to flight dynamics; and European industry can use it to gain a expand this initiative further, both by – flight dynamics to mission planning; competitive edge, as demonstrated by the resulting in further standardisation of – mission planning to monitoring and number of successful projects based on services, architecture and interfaces and by control; ESA/ESOC products, in particular SCOS- bringing in the institutional and industry – simulator to electrical ground support 2000. Success has depended on a strong players at the European level. e equipment (EGSE). strategic vision, exploiting the advantages

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