Multi-Project Telemetry-based Digital Twin Environment for Space-Mission Development, Analysis, and Operations

Real-time telemetry-based, 3D situational-awareness visualizations for deep space and earth-orbiting missions have proven to be vital during all mission phases from project for- mulation, mission development, design, verification, and post- launch operations. These visualizations play key roles in sending flight system health and status to engineers and communicat- ing mission goals to stakeholders and the public. This real- time telemetry-based visualization technology has been used for many previous NASA/JPL missions including Mars 2020, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), Low-Density Supersonic Deceler- ator (LDSD), NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), Galileo, and many NASA/JPL robotic systems research and development projects. Despite the number of missions that use these visualizations to carry out mission operations, there currently exists no multi-project environment. The current development model of building new and unique telemetry vi- sualization software systems for each new mission is extremely cost-ineffective. In this paper, we, from JPL’s Mission Control Systems Section, introduce Theia, our multi-project space mis- sion telemetry-based visualization system which we offer as a low-cost, easily configurable, multi-project system inspired by our recent work on the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequence for the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover mission. The Theia telemetry visualization system is an end-to-end solution that listens to a real-time telemetry or simulation data source, processes, packages, and streams that data through secure WebSockets to multiple simultaneously connected web browser clients executing our TheiaJS 3D visualization engine. TheiaJS presents the data to the user through an interactive 3D in- terface, extendable as required by individual missions. We describe Theia’s complete system design and architecture, the construction and rendering of a flight-system Digital Twin, and the data pipeline needed to accurately and continuously update the Digital Twin and its environment. We illustrate Theia’s use using historical data from two previous missions: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and Mars Perseverance Rover 2020, as well as data from future missions such as NISAR and Psyche. In addition, we discuss challenges, system verification, validation, and integration with predictive models and analysis tools. We further explore Theia as the core of a fully integrated real-time flight mission analysis and visualization environment.

基于实时遥测技术的深空与近地轨道任务三维态势感知可视化系统，已被证实于任务全周期（包括项目规划、任务研发、设计、验证及发射后运营阶段）中发挥关键作用。此类可视化工具可向工程师传递飞行系统的健康状态与运行参数，并向利益相关方及公众传达任务目标，起到核心支撑作用。该实时遥测可视化技术已应用于诸多过往NASA/JPL任务，包括火星2020、火星科学实验室（Mars Science Laboratory, MSL）、低密度超音速减速器（Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator, LDSD）、美国国家航空航天局土壤湿度主动被动探测器（Soil Moisture Active Passive, SMAP）、伽利略号，以及众多NASA/JPL机器人系统研发项目。尽管已有诸多任务借助此类可视化系统开展任务运营，但目前尚未出现支持多项目的通用环境。当前为每项新任务单独开发专属遥测可视化软件系统的研发模式，成本效益极低。本文来自JPL任务控制系统部门的团队，将介绍我们研发的Theia多项目太空任务遥测可视化系统：该系统参考了我们在火星2020毅力号探测器任务的进入、下降与着陆（Entry, Descent, and Landing, EDL）流程中开展的相关工作，具备低成本、易配置的多项目适配特性。Theia遥测可视化系统是一套端到端解决方案，可对接实时遥测或仿真数据源，对数据进行处理、打包，并通过安全WebSocket协议将数据流式传输至多个同时连接的网页浏览器客户端，这些客户端运行我们开发的TheiaJS三维可视化引擎。TheiaJS通过交互式三维界面向用户展示数据，且可针对具体任务需求进行定制扩展。本文详述了Theia的完整系统设计与架构、飞行系统数字孪生（Digital Twin）的构建与渲染流程，以及用于精准、持续更新数字孪生及其运行环境的数据管道。我们将借助两项过往任务（火星科学实验室MSL与2020年火星毅力号探测器）的历史数据，以及NISAR、灵神星（Psyche）等未来任务的相关数据，演示Theia的实际应用场景。此外，本文还探讨了系统开发面临的挑战、系统验证与确认工作，以及与预测模型及分析工具的集成方案。我们还进一步探讨了将Theia作为全集成实时飞行任务分析与可视化环境核心的应用前景。