Each grid can be rotated at different angles to give controllers different dimensional views of the data. Up to 20 or 30 individual spacecraft can be monitored simultaneously with this new cyberspace feature. Most importantly, a visual software interface allows us to display a dramatically increased amount of data all at the same time and it gives operators immediate visual recognition of potential problems by using icons that change in color or begin flashing when a situation is becoming serious on board the craft. The system is a departure from conventional text-based software programs. Rather than displaying tables of alphanumeric data and text, the cyberspace environment presents data in three dimensions, using specified colors and shapes, such as squares, circles and diamonds, to denote different data channels and values.
Motion is used to denote changes in status quo.
In the 3-D environment, flight controllers can pitch, yaw, roll, zoom in and zoom out of data grids that are displaying information about the status of spacecraft subsystems such as power, temperature, alarms and star calibration reference points. When a channel goes into alarm, its corresponding channel object or icon changes color and position, said Robert Angelino, lead software developer for the cyberspace project. If the rate of change exceeds a predefined magnitude over a predefined time period, then the channel triggers a trend alarm. So, for instance, if the temperature on board the spacecraft is heating up to unusually high levels, or a gyro is beginning to drift off course, the corresponding channel objects will change colors from yellow to red. The channel objects will also spin if they are in yellow and flash if they are being displayed in red.