ITOS Current Activities

Development Effort - Current Tasks

A patch for ITOS Release 7-4 is in process, but an issue date has not yet been set. The next planned major release is scheduled for September 1, 2006 to support the GLAST MOC and LRO Ground System releases.

TBD - Patch 1 for ITOS Release 7-4
This patch will include at least the following:
  1. A memory leak in STOL command generation will be fixed.
  2. Some bug fixes in command building that were included in patches to ITOS Release 7-3 were left out of Release 7-4, and will be included in this patch.
  3. The LRO global command packet checksum routine will be added.
  4. The ITOS telemetry subsystem will be modified to allow it to handle CCSDS with length fields set to values larger than 65500 bytes.
  5. Changes will be made to allow for supressing additional event messages from STOL procs running in the background.
September 1, 2006 - ITOS Release 7-5
This release will include all remaining GLAST requirements, including:
  1. Handling for (GBM) time rollovers and discontinuities.
  2. Optional queueing of events for external event consumers to minimize the chance of dropping of messages.
  3. Provision for synchronizing the production of derived telemetry values with the processing of values used in the derivation. This is to handle the GLAST YSI thermister EU conversions.
  4. GPS command CRC.
  5. GPS response processing.
  6. Handling for telecommand log and spacecraft event messages dumps.
  7. Tool for building the spacecraft flight parameter table.
This release also will include:
  1. Preliminary version of LRO Data Management System software.

Please click here to see the detailed task list to which the ITOS developers are working, along with their associated priorities and schedule for completion.

Projects We're Supporting

LRO
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is the first mission in the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program, part of NASA's Exploration Initiative. LRO will carry seven instruments to map the lunar surface and study the moon's environment.
GLAST
The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope mission is a major gamma-ray telescope funded jointly by NASA and the Department of Energy. ITOS will be used for on-orbit operations on this mission.
ULDB
The Ultra Long Duration Balloon program is a technology endeavor to develop extended flight ballooncrafts. These missions will have a 100-day duration. ITOS will support the ballooncraft development, integration, and test, and will function as the control and monitoring system for the Control Center. The ground stations with which ITOS will interface are TDRSS, Inmarsat, Argos, Iridium, and the Space Network. The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass Balloon Experiment (CREAM) mission currently is under development and scheduled for launch from Antarctica in late 2004.
SET
The Space Environment Testbed project, part of the Living With a Star program. ITOS is being used for development, integration, test, and operations for the SET missions.
GMSEC
The Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center project. The ITOS Group is working on two tasks for this project, one in support of the GMSEC architecture development, and one in support of developing an XML standard for mission telemetry and command databases.
Swift
The Swift mission is to study Gamma Ray Bursts. ITOS has been widely deployed by the Swift project and is being used by all of the major groups involved in Swift development. Spectrum Astro used ITOS for spacecraft bus development, integration, and testing and for observatory integration and testing. Penn State, GSFC, MSSL, and SwRI used ITOS for instrument development and integration. And Omitron currently is using ITOS to operate the Swift spacecraft from facilities at Penn State.
SMEX missions
ITOS is being used to fly six Small Explorers missions: SAMPEX, FAST, SWAS, TRACE, WIRE, and HESSI.
Triana
The Triana mission is dedicated to studying the Earth's climate from a million miles away. ITOS was being used to support spacecraft and instrument development, integration and test, on-orbit operations, and science data processing. The spacecraft was to be deployed from the shuttle after being checked out from an ITOS installation at Johnson Space Center. Once launched, mission operations would have been conducted from Goddard Space Flight Center. Some new features added to ITOS to support this mission include file upload and download capability, and a "telnet" interface to the onboard VxWorks operating system. Although the Triana spacecraft is ready to go, this mission is on indefinite hold awaiting a launch opportunity.