Visualizing Success at NASA For NASA, every Space Shuttle launch, satellite development project, or spacecraft communications network is a complicated, potentially life-dependent, and expensive endeavor. BEAM uses sophisticated simulations to model the requirements of a given CSOC mission. BEAM takes the requirements of a given mission and develops a model that depicts them visually.
Users viewing the model also can double-click on a particular component to see it in greater detail.
For a new spacecraft, the scenario can show such key details as when the spacecraft will be in view of a given ground station or what bandwidth will be necessary to transmit data from space to Earth. Next year NASA plans to launch a satellite that will carry a payload of sensors for a Japanese client. BEAM also allows CSOC to simulate different approaches to a mission, test alternative plans and innovative ideas, and trouble-shoot challenges that might arise. An Evolving Model Graves acknowledges that no simulation in any environment can predict with absolute certainty the outcome of a real-world mission. But she says one of BEAM's strongest points is the evolutionary process of developing models and simulations.