Three expert system applications developed with the G2 real-time expert system tool will be part of the voyage of the Space Shuttle Columbia, which is due to blast off from Cape Canaveral tomorrow, Gensym Corp reports from Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company claims that the applications mark the most ambitious on-line use of real-time expert system technology in a NASA Shuttle mission. Developed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the applications cover guidance, navigation, and control; orbiter communications systems, and cell testing. During the mission, G2 will receive and analyse data from a real-time telemetry stream measuring more than 300 data points per second. The flight control system should make life a little less fraught for the folks back at Houston – NASA project manager Troy Heindel points out that flight control operations are extremely data-intensive in terms of the speed, volume, and complexity of the data being generated. Even the most seasoned flight controllers – with years of thorough training and mission experience – are put to the test by rapidly changing in-flight conditions. G2 will monitor and analyse data from air data probes on the skin of the Shuttle which provide pilots and ground-based flight controllers with real-time data on the speed and angle of attack for launch and landing. A large number of the rules contained in the knowledge base are long-standing NASA flight rules that serve as the guidelines for in-flight procedures. G2 will also manage the storage and analysis of telemetry data collected when the Shuttle is flying blind out of range of the tracking and relay satellites; and will help to test the Shuttle’s KU band antenna.
