1, /iw.... -_ +I -J"- _A i:U"_'_ .7l-m _-_/£ (HASA-CR-i8740d) EVALUATION OF THE N91-13104 7 TRAJECTORY OPERATIONS APPLICATIONS SOFTWARE TASK (TOAST) (Houston Univ.) 65 p CSCL 09B Unc! <_s G3/Ol 0312546 EVALUATION OF THE TRAJECTORY OPERA TIONS APPLICATIONS SOFTWARE TASK ('TOAST) . Sharon Perkins University of Houston-Clear Lake _- _--_ ---_ Andrea Martin i ................................ Bill Bavinger Rice University : 2 Aullust 27, 1990 Cooperative Agreement NCC 9-16 Research Activity SE.36 NASA Johnson Spice Center Million Operations Directorate © © ' / _1 Research Institute for Computing and Information Systems University of Houston - Clear Lake T.E.C.H.N.I.C.A .L R" E--P_O :R" T 1,f 7S 4 - 7--;•- 7 " = m f :- - _j The University of Houston-Clear Lake established the Research Institute for Computing and Information systems in 1986 to encourage NASA Johnson Space _ Center and local industry to actively support research in the computing and _ The information sciences. As part of this endeavor, UH-Clear Lake proposed a partnership with JSC to jointly define and manage an integrated program of research in advanced data processing technology needed for JSC's main missions, including _ :. RICIS admlnlst ratlve, engineering andscience _responsibilities. JSC agreed an d entered i nto _ #_r a three-year cooperative agreement with UH-Clear Lake beginning in May, 1986, to - -'_- jointly plan and execute such research through RICIS. Additionally, under Concept Cooperative Agreement NCC 9-16, computing and educatiqaal facilities are shared by the two institutions to conduct the research. = The mission of RICIS is to conduct, coordinate and disseminate research on "_ computing and information systems among researchers, sponsors and users from UH-Clear Lake, NASA/JSC, and other research organizations. Within UH-Clear Lake, the mission is being implemented through interdisciplinary involvement of faculty and students from each of the four schools: Business, Education, Human --" Sciences and Humanities, and Natural and Applied Sciences. Other research organizations are involved via the "gateway" concept_ UH-Clear . = Lake establishes relationships with other universities and research organizations, having common research interests, to provide additional sources of expertise to -- conduct needed research. A major role of RICIS is to find the best match of sponsors, researchers and research objectives to advance knowledge in the computing and information sciences. Working jointly with NASA/JSC, RICIS advises on research needs, -" recommends principals for conducting the research, provides technical and administrative support to coordinate the research, and integrates technical results into the cooperative goals of UH-Clear Lake and NASA/JSC. m .. z m EVALUATION OF THE TRAJECTORY OPERA TIONS APPLICATIONS SOFTWARE TASK (TOAST) km . T I Jig m In iw k II qlw I Imlw W mw _ i Preface m This research was conducted under the auspices of the Research Institute for Computing and Information Systems by: Dr. Sharon Perkins, and Dr. Alfredo Perez-Davila, both Assistant Professors of Computer Science, University of Houston-Clear Lake; Ms. Andrea Martin, Manager, Computing Resource Center, Rice University; Bill Bavinger, Assistant Professor of Architecture, Rice University; David Boyes, consultant; and Dr. Livia Polanyi, consultant. Dr. Sharon Perkins served as RICIS research representative. Funding has been provided by Flight Design and Dynamics, within Mission Operations Directorate, NASA/JSC through Cooperative Agreement NCC 9-16 between NASA Johnson Space Center and the University of Houston-Clear Lake. The NASA technical monitor for this activity was Mike Evans. The views and conclusions contained in this report are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representative of the official policies, either express or implied, of NASA or the United States Government. w ! F Overview Jill The Trajectory Operations Applications Software Task (TOAS_ is a software development project under the auspices of the Mission Operations Directorate. Its purpose is to provide trajectory operation pre-mission and real-time support for the Space Shuttle program. As an Application Manager, TOAST provides an isolation layer between the underlying Unix operating system and the series of user programs. It provides two main services: 1. A common interface to operating system functions with semantics appropriate for C or FORTRAN 2. A structured input and output package that can be utilized by user application V programs. These two services can be used independently of the environment, providing a flexible application toolkit. In order to evaluate TOAST as an Application Manager, RICIS undertook an evaluation of the system under NASA Cooperative Agreement NCC 9-16. The task was to assess current and planned capabilities, compare capabilities to functions available in commercially-available off the shelf (COTS) software, and analyze requirements of Mission Control Center (MCC) and Flight Analysis Design System (FADS) users for m TOAST implementation. The project team consisted of faculty, staff, and students from University of Houston-Clear Lake and Rice University. Principal investigators were Sharon Perkins, Andrea Martin, and Bill Bavinger. w The evaluation began on March 28, 1990 and completed September 1, 1990. Preliminary results were presented to Flight Dynamics on June 1. Security briefings were delivered on May 24 and June 7. An executive brief'rag for management was presented on June 21. A I formal presentation to the NASA community was presented on June 22. An additional executive briefing for Flight Design management was delivered on July 10. V As a result of our investigation, we found that the current version of TOAST is well implemented and meets the needs of the real-time users. The plans for migrating TOAST to the X Window System are essentially sound; the Executive will port with minor changes, while Menu Handler will require a total rewrite. In this report, we include a series of recommendations for future TOAST directions, which is summarized as follows: Plan for a distributed operating environment with services, such as event notification, authentication and configuration management, database, and graphical user interfaces, provided via a high speed network. v 2 v Table of Contents List of Figures 6 Acronym Glossary 7 I. The Task II. Project Team Synopsis III. Our Approach 11 IV. High Level Summary 12 V. Needs Analysis 13 A. User Requirements 13 1. Evaluation Strategy 2. Task Analysis 14 a. Tasks Common to FDOs and Orbit Flight Design Users 14 b. Tasks of Orbit Flight Design 14 c. Tasks of Flight Dynamics Officers (FDOs) 15 3. Requirements 15 a. Requirements of Orbit Flight Designers 15 b. FDO Requirements 15 c. Additions to TOAST to Support Flight Design 16 d. Summary 16 B. Environmental Constraints 16 C. Design Philosophy 17 1. Role of an Application Manager 17 2a. Executive-based Design 18 2b. Overall Evaluation of TOAST Executive 19 3a. Structured Display Control 19 3b. Continuum of User Interfaces 20 3c. Overall Evaluation of Menu Handler 20 4a. Menu-Application-Display (MAD) Model 21 4b. Overall Evaluation of Menu-Application-Display (MAD) Model 21 5a. User Requirements versus Design Implementation 22 5b. Overall Evaluation of User Requirements Implementation 22 VI. Technical Analysis 23 A. Fault Tolerance 23 ..._. 1. Task of Fault Tolerance 23 2. Evaluation Strategy 23 3. Fault Tolerance in TOAST 23 4. Strengths of Present Implementation 24 5. Weaknesses of Present Implementation 24 6. Overall Evaluation of Strengths and Weaknesses 24 7. Recommendation 24 8. Summary 24 3 B. Portability 25 w 1. Task of Portability 25 2. Evaluation Strategy 25 3. Portability in TOAST 25 "!111 4. Strengths of Present Implementation 25 5. Weaknesses of Present Implementation 25 6. Recommendation 25 7. Summary 25 C. Comparison: Muld-Level Menu System to COTS Application Manager 26 1. Task of a Menu Application System 26 2. Evaluation Strategy 26 III 3. Multi-Level Menu System in TOAST 26 4. Strengths of Present Implementation 26 5. Weaknesses of Present Implementation 27 6. Overall Evaluation of Strengths and Weaknesses 27 7. Recommendation 27 8. Summary 27 D. Comparison: Menu Handler to Text-based COTST_ikits 27 1. Task of Forms Generation and Display Packages 27 2. Implementation in TOAST 28 3. Evaluation Strategy 28 4. Strengths of Present Implementation 28 5. Weaknesses of Present Implementation 29 6. Overall Evaluation of Strengths and Weaknesses 29 7. Recommendation 29 8. Summary 29 E. Data Structures 30 30 1. Task of Data Structures i 2. Data Structures in TOAST 30 3. Evaluation Strategy 30 4. Strengths of Present Implementation 30 5. Weaknesses of Present Implementation 30 ! 6. Recommendation 30 7. Summary 30 31 F. Security V 1. Task of Security 31 2. Evaluation Strategy 31 3. Security in TOAST 31 4. Strengths of Present Implementation 31 5. Weaknesses of Present TOAST Implementation 31 6. Weaknesses of the Environment 32 7. Overall Evaluation of Security Strengths and Weaknesses 32 w 8. Recommendation 32 9. Summary 32 m VII. Man/Machine Interface 33 33 A. Applications Programming Envirgnment m 33 1. Evaluation Strategy m 2. Strengths of Programming Environment 33 3. Weaknesses of Programming Environment 33 4. Recommendation 34 B. User Interface Capabilities 34 4 VIII. Software Engineering 35 w A. Coding Practices 35 1. Evaluation Strategy 35 2. Evaluation Criteria 35 3. Implementation in TOAST Software 36 4. Recommendation 37 5. Summary 37 B. Documentation Review 38 l° Evaluation Strategy 38 2. Evaluation Criteria 38 ,: ± 3. Implementation in Menu Handler Documentation 38 4. Strengths of Menu Handler Documentation 39 5. Weaknesses of Menu Handler Documentation 39 6. Recommendation 39 7. Summary 40 C. Revision Practices 40 1. Evaluation Strategy 40 2. Evaluation Criteria 40 3. The Revision Process for TOAST 40 4. Problem Areas 41 5. Recommendation 41 6. Summary 42 IX. Future TOAST Migrations 43 A. TOAST Under X 43 i 1. Evaluation Strategy 43 2. The X Window System 43 3.