William D. Ivancic and Phillip Paulsen

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

Dave Stewart

Verizon Business Federal Network Systems, Cleveland, Ohio

Jon Walke, Larry Dikeman, Steven Sage, and Eric Miller

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

James Northam and Chris Jackson

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., Guildford, United Kingdom

Lloyd Wood

University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom

John Taylor, Scott Lynch, and Jay Heberle

Universal Space Network, Horsham, Pennsylvania

Virtual Mission Operations of Remote Sensors

With Rapid Access To and From Space

NASA/TM—2010-216364

July 2010

AIAA–2010–2305
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William D. Ivancic and Phillip Paulsen

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

Dave Stewart

Verizon Business Federal Network Systems, Cleveland, Ohio

Jon Walke, Larry Dikeman, Steven Sage, and Eric Miller

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

James Northam and Chris Jackson

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., Guildford, United Kingdom

Lloyd Wood

University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom

John Taylor, Scott Lynch, and Jay Heberle

Universal Space Network, Horsham, Pennsylvania

Virtual Mission Operations of Remote Sensors

With Rapid Access To and From Space

NASA/TM—2010-216364

July 2010

AIAA–2010–2305

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

Glenn Research Center

Cleveland, Ohio 44135

Prepared for the

SpaceOps 2010 Conference

sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Huntsville, Alabama, April 25–30, 2010
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Level of Review: This material has been technically reviewed by technical management. 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 1 

Virtual Mission Operations of Remote Sensors 

With Rapid Access To and From Space 

William D. Ivancic and Phillip Paulsen 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Glenn Research Center 

Cleveland, Ohio 44135 

Dave Stewart 

Verizon Business Federal Network Systems 

Cleveland, Ohio 44135 

Jon Walke, Larry Dikeman, Steven Sage, and Eric Miller 

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems 

Vandenberg Air Force Base, California 93437 

James Northam and Chris Jackson 

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. 

Guildford, United Kingdom 

Lloyd Wood 

University of Surrey 

Guildford, United Kingdom 

John Taylor, Scott Lynch, and Jay Heberle 

Universal Space Network 

Horsham, Pennsylvania 19044 

Abstract 

This paper describes network-centric operations, where a virtual mission operations center 

autonomously receives sensor triggers, and schedules space and ground assets using Internet-based 

technologies and service-oriented architectures. For proof-of-concept purposes, sensor triggers are 

received from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to determine targets for space-based sensors. 

The Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) Disaster Monitoring Constellation satellite, the United 

Kingdom Disaster Monitoring Constellation (UK-DMC), is used as the space-based sensor. The UKDMC’s availability is determined via machine-to-machine communications using SSTL’s mission 

planning system. Access to/from the UK-DMC for tasking and sensor data is via SSTL’s and Universal 

Space Network’s (USN) ground assets. The availability and scheduling of USN’s assets can also be 

performed autonomously via machine-to-machine communications. All communication, both on the 

ground and between ground and space, uses open Internet standards. 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 2 

I. Introduction 

One of NASA’s strategic objectives is to develop new space-based and related capabilities for 

advancement of the study of the Earth’s climate and ecological systems from space. In particular, the 

work described in this paper advances Earth observation from space via time-critical sensor control, 

improves scientific understanding via distributed sensor web interactions and data mining techniques, and 

demonstrates new technologies with the potential to improve future operational systems. 

In support of NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Advanced Information Systems 

Technology (AIST) programs, NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) developed information delivery 

protocols, and secure, autonomous, machine-to-machine communication and control technologies to 

enable integration of distributed Earth system sensors and processing components into sensor webs. 

GRC’s research efforts concentrated on the architecture and development of system building blocks 

leading to autonomous sensor webs. GRC leveraged its relationships with Cisco Systems, General 

Dynamics, USN, the Army and Air Force Battle Labs, and SSTL to develop a ground and space-based 

network and relevant protocols to demonstrate time-critical interoperability between integrated, intelligent 

sensor webs consisting of space-based, fixed, and mobile terrestrial-based assets. 

GRC developed the necessary infrastructure and protocols to enable near real-time commanding and 

access to space-based assets. Protocol development culminated with a space-flight demonstration of large 

file transfers distributed across multiple satellite ground stations. 

GRC worked with General Dynamics, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, and USN to integrate 

General Dynamics’ Virtual Mission Operation Center (VMOC) technology and open architecture 

interfaces with selected terrestrial and space-based sensor webs able to demonstrate time-critical 

interoperability and intelligent integration. This paper concentrates on the use of the VMOC to 

autonomously schedule and obtain services from multiple independent parties in order to task a spacebased sensor and obtain sensor data in the shortest time. 

This research also fulfilled NASA’s goal to promote commercial participation in exploration to 

further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests and to involve the U.S. private sector in the design 

and development of space systems. GRC utilized U.S. and, when necessary, foreign commercial space 

capabilities and services to accomplish this. The commercial companies participating in this research 

effort include: 

 General Dynamics—Virtual Mission Operations Center technology 

 Universal Space Network—ground station development and ground station network 

 Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, a United Kingdom company—commercial imagery satellite 

II. Secure, Autonomous, Integrated Space/Ground Sensor Webs 

A. Concept of Operations (CONOPS) 

The overall goal of the secure autonomous integrated space/ground sensor web was to demonstrate 

secure network centric operations of space/ground assets owned and operated by multiple parties. In order 

to accomplish this, a network consisting of terrestrial sensors (seismic sensors), a VMOC, multiple 

ground stations and a spacecraft were used with the flow of information shown in Figure 1. A seismic 

sensor update was received by the VMOC that indicated some exceptional event of interest. The VMOC 

then decided what other sensors or sensor network could be brought to bear in order to gain more 

information on that event. In this situation, the terrestrial sensor web is the Global Seismic Network 

(Ref. 1) with the trigger information obtained from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). A 

limited demonstration, Phase I, of the overall concept occurred in July 2009 (see Section III, Automated 

Service Agreements). 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 3 

Figure 1.—Secure, autonomous, integrated space/ground sensor web. 

Figure 1 illustrates the overall CONOPS as a series of events labeled 1 through 7. 

1. The VMOC receives a trigger of a seismic event from the USGS notification system. The trigger 

level can be set to some threshold. That trigger sets the autonomous sensor web into motion. 

2. The VMOC’s job is to task other sensors and reserve and/or configure whatever infrastructure is 

necessary to obtain the requested data. In this instance, the other sensor is SSTL’s UK-DMC 

satellite. The supporting infrastructure includes Internet-enabled ground stations: one in 

Guildford, England owned and operated by SSTL, and three ground stations in North Pole, 

Alaska, South Point, Hawaii and Mingeneu, Australia, owned and operated by USN. 

3. Once the VMOC coordinates all facilities for availability and requests reservation of those assets, 

the individual entities cooperate to configure and operate their facilities and infrastructure, rather 

than the VMOC assuming complete system control. This is accomplished by machine-to-machine 

communication and negotiation. For example, USN may get a request to take a pass of the UKDMC satellite over its Australian ground station at a given date and time. USN will accommodate 

the request, set up USN’s infrastructure and ensure the data paths are in place to enable data to 

get back to the VMOC. Likewise, SSTL schedules the UK-DMC to turn on and begin 

transmitting over the ground station in Australia. 

4. The commands are sent to the spacecraft regarding when to capture sensor data and when to 

transmit that data to the ground. Those commands are currently passed to the satellite via SSTL’s 

‘home’ ground station; however, they could conceivably be passed to the satellite via a thirdparty ground station such as one of the other international DMC ground stations, or USN’s 

Australian site as illustrated in Figure 1. 

5. The image is taken over the area of interest corresponding to the seismic event. 

6. The image is then downloaded. As illustrated, this image is downloaded to a third party ground 

station in Japan. 

7. If an image is too large to be transmitted in its entirety during a single pass, the remaining portion 

of the file can be transmitted via a second ground terminal. In Figure 1, the second ground station 

is in Alaska. A limited demonstration of large-file transfer over multiple ground stations was 

successfully performed using this network in September and October 2009 (Ref. 2). 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 4 

B. Space Infrastructure 

The spacecraft used for all networking experiments is UK-DMC satellite. The UK-DMC satellite is 

one of seven on-orbit Internet-enabled imaging satellites, of which six are currently operational, including 

the later UK-DMC-2 satellite (so the UK-DMC is now also known as UK-DMC-1). Two more DMC 

satellites are expected to join the constellation with launch in 2010. The DMCs are operational satellites, 

providing imagery both under the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters (the “Disasters 

Charter”) and as part of a commercial, money-making venture selling imagery (DMC International 

Imaging Ltd). Individuals can request an image of an area of the Earth (and may need to pay). These 

satellites are in a sun-synchronous polar orbit with an altitude of 680 km and a period of approximately 

one revolution every 100 min. A reasonably usable pass will have the satellite in view of any one ground 

station for 8 to 14 min. Disruption occurs when the satellite cannot communicate with a ground station. 

The round-trip-time delay from ground station to the spacecraft is under 10 ms, thus propagation delay is 

not the issue here (unlike for deep space). 

The UK-DMC-1 satellite carries three solid-state data recorders (SSDRs): one with a StrongARM 

Processor and two using the Motorola MPC8260 PowerPC processor. For our tests we use one of the 

MPC8260 SSDRs. The SSDR has a Real-Time Executive for Multiprocessor Systems (RTEMS) 

operating system including Portable Operating System Interface for Unix (POSIX) application program 

interface (API). The storage capacity on the PowerPC SSDRs consists of 1 or 0.5 Gbyte of Randomaccess memory (RAM) while the bootable operating system image is limited to 0.5 Mbytes. 

The communication systems consist of a slow 9600 bits-per-second (bps) uplink for commanding and 

the much faster 8.134 Mbps downlink for transmitting high-resolution imagery. The data link is 

commercial off-the-shelf standard Frame Relay/High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC). The UK-DMC-1 

satellite uses Internet Protocol (IP) packets to move data to and from the satellite. The network protocol is 

IPv4 but could easily be changed to IPv6. The DMC satellites have uplink/downlink asymmetries of up to 

850:1 for S-Band transmitters and 8333:1 for X-Band transmitters on later DMC satellites, leading to an 

unusual network environment which many protocols are unable to cope with efficiently, e.g., TCP 

acknowledgement would congest the uplink, while TCP segments would be unable to fill the downlink to 

capacity due to TCP’s backoff algorithms. Higher link asymmetries are planned for future DMC satellites, 

which will have faster downlinks for higher-resolution imagery. The file transport protocol used is 

Saratoga (Ref. 3), a simple, high-rate, rate-based, negative-acknowledgement UDP/IP-based file transfer 

protocol that can operate over extremely asymmetric links and tolerate loss. Saratoga is specified in a 

public internet-draft. 

The UK-DMC-1 satellite is the only DMC satellite to have an onboard experimental networking 

payload, the Cisco router in Low Earth Orbit (CLEO). From 2004 through 2008, CLEO was used for the 

advanced IP network testing and demonstrations (Ref. 4). The UK-DMC-1 satellite was the first satellite 

to source IPv6 traffic and the first to demonstrate IP security protocols (Refs. 5 to 7). Because of these 

successful tests, SSTL allowed the UK-DMC-1 to be used for large-file transfer demonstrations over 

multiple ground stations. For large-file transfer tests, the Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) Bundle 

Protocol (Ref. 8) was used with DTN-conformant bundles constructed directly in the SSDR (Ref. 9). 

C. Ground Infrastructure 

The ground infrastructure, shown in Figure 2, consists of a number of ground stations scattered 

throughout the Earth and a VMOC located at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Each 

ground station router has a serial link to the RF system, a LAN Ethernet connection to a workstation that 

is used to upload and download files, and a WAN Ethernet link that eventually leads to the open Internet. 

An additional workstation (Bundle Agent) has been placed on the LAN Ethernet link to perform storeand-forward operations using the experimental store-and-forward Bundle Protocol, which was developed 

by the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) DTN Research Group. Here, store-and-forward technology is 

used to break transport protocol control loops and handle rate mismatch problems between the Space-Ground 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 5 

link and the terrestrial link between ground stations and data combining location. In this case, the data 

combining location is a DTN bundle agent co-located with the VMOC. The ground station, network 

architecture and details for the UK-DMC-1 onboard system are described in “Secure, Network-Centric 

Operations of a Space-Based Asset: CLEO and VMOC (Ref. 4).” 

1. SSTL Ground Station 

SSTL’s ground station is located in Guildford, United Kingdom. SSTL’s ground station is a stable 

operational system. Therefore, this ground station is used to execute each new test prior to attempting to 

duplicate the test on any other station, to allow separation of debugging the tests and debugging newer 

ground stations. 

2. Universal Space Network 

NASA GRC and USN entered into a contract for USN to provide three ground stations configured to 

communicate with the UK-DMC-1 satellite and to be capable of providing IP and DTN connectivity 

between the ground stations and the GRC local network. NASA provided the routers and DTN bundle 

agents to USN. 

The USN ground stations are located in Alaska, Hawaii, and Australia. All three ground stations are 

operational. All ground stations were tested and can now receive both low-rate (38.4 kbps) IP-based 

operations telemetry and high-rate (8.134 Mbps) IP-based remote sensing imagery transmissions, 

multiplexed with telemetry, from the UK-DMC satellite. 

Home

Agent

(GRC)

Tactical Ground 

Station (TGS)

Colorado Springs, CO

SSTL

Guildford 

England

VMOC-1

(GRC)

Open Internet

Database VMOC

Satellite

Scheduler

& Controller

NICT 

Koganei 

Ground Station 

Universal Space Networks

Ground Network 

Alaska, Hawaii and Australia

UK-DMC/CLEO

Figure 2.—Space/ground network. 

 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 6 

III. Automated Service Agreements 

The concept of operations for the secure, autonomous, integrated space/ground sensor webs, 

illustrated in Figure 1, requires access to space-based assets using multiple ground stations. Furthermore, 

the nature of the system development requires secure autonomous machine-to-machine scheduling of 

such assets. These autonomous, automated service agreements enable NASA to obtain near real-time 

access to space-based assets. To demonstrate secure autonomous machine-to-machine scheduling, 

General Dynamics, under contract to NASA, developed and implemented algorithms and code necessary 

to perform secure, autonomous, automatic scheduling of SSTL’s UK-DMC-1, SSTL, and USN’s ground 

assets within its VMOC software. 

The basic operations flow is shown in Figure 3. Some event, such a volcano eruption, earthquake, 

tsunami or flood, is sensed by a remote sensor web. The remote sensor web sends an event trigger to the 

VMOC. The VMOC notes the location of the event and determines what space-based resources are 

available. In our example, only one space-based asset is available, the UK-DMC-1 satellite. The VMOC 

then negotiates with SSTL for availability of that asset. Once availability is determined, the VMOC 

determines what ground support infrastructure is available for both commanding and data retrieval. The 

VMOC then attempts to schedule these ground assets. If a conflict exists, the process is re-initiated, 

otherwise, the assets are scheduled and commanding and data retrieval is performed. Once the spacebased sensor data has been downloaded and delivered and is made available via the VMOC, the VMOC 

will notify the end users as to the availability and location of such data. 

General Dynamics’ implementation of the Secure Autonomous Automated Scheduling (SAAS) 

project consisted of monitoring the USGS earthquake notification system for sensor triggers, 

automatically scheduling an image acquisition of the target area via SSTL’s UK-DMC-1 satellite and 

downloading the acquired image to the General-Dynamics-developed VMOC at GRC, for access by 

SAAS VMOC users. The aim was to reduce the time between notification and availability of the image, 

by using multiple ground stations with both scheduled upload and payload download capability, as well 

as to demonstrate the ability to perform SAAS of on-orbit assets, triggered by available sensor webs. The 

system is documented in NASA Contractor Report NASA/CR—2010-216097 (Ref. 10). 

Event Trigger

Determine

Ground Stations Availabilities

Determine UK-DMC

Availabilities

Pick Next

Best Time

Schedule

UK-DMC

Schedule

Ground Stations

Scheduling Complete

CONFLICT

SUCCESS

SUCCESS

CONFLICT

Figure 3.—Machine-to-machine autonomous scheduling. 

 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 7 

The SAAS project was developed in a phased approach, initially utilizing the SSTL ground station 

and Mission Planning System (MPS) web services interface and escalating to the utilization of additional 

USN ground stations located in Alaska, Hawaii, and Australia for both scheduled upload and image 

download. The SAAS Project phases are: 

 Phase 1: VMOC requests imaging opportunities from a simulated SSTL MPS via the web service. 

The result is a valid schedule that is not acted upon. Tasking is simulated and a substitute raw 

image file will be made available via FTP for retrieval by the GRC VMOC. A further service will 

be made available for the VMOC to process the raw image to a single co-registered Tagged 

Image File Format (TIFF) image. This processing service will apply across all four Phases. 

Phase I was completed in July of 2009. 

 Phase 2: VMOC requests imaging opportunities from the live SSTL MPS via the web service, 

subject to availability, tasking the UK-DMC-1 through SSTL’s ground station to acquire the raw 

image file which will be downloaded to SSTL and made available via FTP. 

 Phase 3: VMOC requests imaging opportunities from SSTL MPS via the web service identifying 

the ground station to receive the download image, subject to availability. VMOC will task UKDMC-1 through SSTL’s ground station to acquire the raw image file. This will be broadcast from 

UK-DMC-1 to the identified ground station and made available via FTP. 

 Phase 4: VMOC requests imaging opportunities from SSTL MPS via the web service identifying 

the individual ground station to upload the schedule and potentially a different ground station to 

receive the broadcast download image, subject to availability. VMOC will upload the schedule 

file to UK-DMC-1 through the previously identified U/L ground station to acquire the raw image 

file. This will be transmitted from UKDMC-1 to the identified D/L ground station and made 

available via FTP. 

For all phases of the SAAS project, the GRC VMOC provides the interface with the USGS 

earthquake website for triggering of SAAS of the UKDMC-1 satellite. The VMOC also provides the 

SAAS user interface for accessing the resultant imagery from the satellite. 

IV. Glenn Research Center VMOC Overview 

The GRC SAAS VMOC consists of five Adobe ColdFusion applications (Admin, Tactical, Mission, 

USN Ground and SSTL Ground Apps) contained within a website container (Fig. 4). Each application 

interfaces with all other apps and the outside world via Application Program Interfaces (API’s) and each 

appropriate application provides a User Interface (UI) via the web site container to the SAAS VMOC user 

(not all UI’s shown for clarity). The Tactical and Mission Applications also interface with Analytical 

Graphics, Incorporated (AGI) Satellite Tool Kit (STK) models for necessary satellite, sensor, target and 

ground station contact information. 

The main GRC SAAS VMOC page (Fig. 5) provides the user with a hierarchical menu structure to 

access each of the SAAS VMOC applications (that have User Interfaces). The main page also provides a 

status of the VMOC applications and VMOC connections and a list of current users online. 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 8 

Figure 4.—GRC SAAS VMOC structure.

Figure 5.—GRC SAAS VMOC main page. 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 9 

V. SAAS-Phase 1 Demonstrated 

The GRC SAAS VMOC Administration, Tactical, Mission and SSTL applications were all exercised 

during a SAAS Phase 1 demonstration in July 2009. Selected earthquake events (as defined in the 

Earthquake Admin Interface) were successfully collected and presented to the user via the Earthquake 

Tasks interface. Imaging task requests were automatically created by the Mission Application, including 

ground station up/down link contact availability information. The Mission Application successfully 

negotiated with the SSTL MPS and determined possible up/down link contact tasking and imaging 

collection times. These collection opportunities were presented to the user via the “UK-DMC Collection 

Management” interface, allowing the SAAS user to “authorize” collections for execution. During the 

Phase 1 demonstration, actual uplink load contacts, image collections and downlink contacts were not 

performed. All other user interfaces were also successfully demonstrated. 

Figures 6 and 7 are from the GRC SAAS VMOC that performs automated tasking. The VMOC is 

currently administratively set to record all seismic activity above 2.5 on the Richter scale and task 

anything above 4.0 (Fig. 6). These are settable parameters with low values being used in order to obtain a 

large dataset for demonstration and debug. When a user highlights one of the locations, it will be shown 

on the mapping function (Fig. 7). 

Figure 6.—General dynamics VMOC tasking page. 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 10 

Figure 7.—Map showing location of item picked from the tasking page. 

Figure 8 shows the pending task requests. Notice that the operator is given the opportunity to select 

which ground stations one may wish to use to download the imagery. For the particular example selected, 

the Bay of California 6.9 earthquake, if one were to use the USN-Australia station, one could obtain the 

imagery approximately 90 min. sooner. This data was obtained on August 5, 2009. Note, the next 

following available opportunity for the UK-DMC-1 to take an image of the Bay of California was 

Saturday, August 8th at 17:10 UTC. This availability is a combination of when the UN-DMC1 will pass 

over the Bay of California and when the UK-DMC-1 is available as it may have been tasked for other 

imagery prior to our request. 

Figure 9 shows detailed information of the selected event. Furthermore, Figure 9 is the screen used to 

actually submit the request (and to eventually get charged for the request). Note, there is a field available 

to provide an estimated cost for executing the request in order to ensure the user is aware of the cost. 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 11 

Figure 8.—Pending task requests. 

Figure 9.—Task request details and submission. 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 12 

Figure 10.—2004 VMOC telemetry page. 

VI. Utilizing Other VMOC Capabilities 

VMOC capabilities were utilized to support USN Ground station troubleshooting as illustrated in 

Figure 10. The original GRC VMOC was utilized to both provide UK-DMC to Ground station contact 

information and also to verify successful telemetry downlinks. Since the VMOC access is via the Internet, 

multiple users with account access to the VMOC could simultaneously view telemetry and tune ground 

station equipment parameters in real-time (e.g., transmit power, Doppler compensation). 

VII. Future Work 

The core technology has been demonstrated in Phase I and is in place for automated scheduling of 

ground and space-based assets. In order to show complete automation of event trigger to sensor collection 

and data distribution, it is highly desirable to complete all aspects of this work including: development 

and demonstration of collection and downlink of images via the SSTL ground station (Phase II); 

automated downlink of data via USN ground stations; and both uplink load and downlink via any 

available ground stations (Phases III and IV). 

Additional space assets could be brought into the network. Currently only the UK-DMC-1satellite is 

utilized. This is primarily due to SSTL’s willingness to experiment with new protocols and techniques as 

well as the ease of interconnecting DMC-capable ground stations to the Internet, as all aspects of the 

DMC satellites and ground stations are Internet-Protocol-compliant. 
NASA/TM—2010-216364 13 

VIII. Department of Defense Use of the VMOC 

The Department of Defense (DOD) expanded VMOC for scheduling and tasking various sensor 

platforms and handling requests via its Space Apportionment for Effect (SAFE) project. In SAFE, the 

VMOC automated the Joint Space Tasking Order (JSTO) process, and issued the test JSTO to the 

Spacecraft Operations Center for implementation—all through a standard secure web environment 

(Ref. 11). 

IX. Summary 

Since 2004, NASA has been utilizing General Dynamics’ Virtual Mission Operations Center as a 

secure portal for access to spacecraft telemetry and real-time control of a space-based asset using Internet 

technologies. We have continued expanding the functionality of the VMOC to include full autonomous 

machine-to-machine automated scheduling of third party assets. Major aspects of the concept of fully 

automating sensing an event-trigger, scheduling a space-based sensor to collect data, and data distribution 

have been successfully demonstrated. Use of multiple ground stations to increase contact times was also 

demonstrated, albeit, currently via a manually-initiated process. The space and ground network 

infrastructure was developed using commercially available assets. All communications were performed 

using commercial-off-the-shelf Internet Protocols with store-and-forward accomplished using the DTN 

experimental bundling protocol. This infrastructure remains in place for future development. 

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NASA/TM—2010-216364 14 

9. Wood, L., Ivancic, I., Eddy. W., Stewart, D., Northam, J., Jackson, C., da Silva Curiel, A., “Use of 

the Delay-Tolerant Networking Bundle Protocol from Space,” IAC-08-B2.3.10, 59th International 

Astronautical Congress, Glasgow, September 2008. 

10. Walke, J., Dikeman, L., Sage, S., Miller, E., “Secure Autonomous Automated Scheduling (SAAS)-

Phase 1 Final Report,” NASA/CR—2010-216097, October 29, 2009. 

11. Miller, E., Hurley, M., Medina, O., Hopkins, J., Lane, R., Veglio, R., Kirkham, A., Ivancic, W., 

Jones, B., Risty, R., “Virtual Mission Operations Center (VMOC) Development and 

Experimentation,” 5th Responsive Space Conference, April 23–26 2007, Los Angeles, CA. 
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01-07-2010 

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Technical Memorandum 

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4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

Virtual Mission Operations of Remote Sensors With Rapid Access To and From Space 

5a. CONTRACT NUMBER

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6. AUTHOR(S)

Ivancic, William, D.; Paulsen, Phillip; Stewart, Dave; Walke, Jon; Dikeman, Larry; Sage, 

Steven; Miller, Eric; Northam, James; Jackson, Chris; Wood, Lloyd; Taylor, John; Lynch, 

Scott; Heberle, Jay 

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WBS 430728.02.04.02.01 

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field 

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Available electronically at http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov 

This publication is available from the NASA Center for AeroSpace Information, 443-757-5802

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14. ABSTRACT

This paper describes network-centric operations, where a virtual mission operations center autonomously receives sensor triggers, and 

schedules space and ground assets using Internet-based technologies and service-oriented architectures. For proof-of-concept purposes, 

sensor triggers are received from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to determine targets for space-based sensors. The Surrey 

Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) Disaster Monitoring Constellation satellite, the United Kingdom Disaster Monitoring Constellation 

(UK-DMC), is used as the space-based sensor. The UK-DMC’s availability is determined via machine-to-machine communications using 

SSTL’s mission planning system. Access to/from the UK-DMC for tasking and sensor data is via SSTL’s and Universal Space Network’s 

(USN) ground assets. The availability and scheduling of USN’s assets can also be performed autonomously via machine-to-machine 

communications. All communication, both on the ground and between ground and space, uses open Internet standards. 

15. SUBJECT TERMS

Network; Security; Communications; Satellite 

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