2009 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

JASSIWG
Joint Airborne Science Sensor
Integration Working Group
The Airborne Science Program has initiated
a multi-center working group to examine the
differences in engineering requirements and
processes across the airborne science fleet, and
to assess the potential benefits for common
information and design requirements among
the aircraft. The Joint Airborne Science Sensor
Integration Working Group (or JASSIWG) was
made up from representatives from six NASA
centers, as well as the Aerospace Corporation and
NSERC.
The goal of the working group is to improve access
to NASA airborne platforms from the science
community by coordinating and streamlining
NASA aircraft instrument integration requirements
and technical information across the platforms.
This streamlining will allow a more consistent
access experience by the science community, and
will encourage migration of science instruments
across the NASA fleet. It has the added advantage
of reducing redundant activities and fostering
communication across the NASA centers, as well as
improving science management operations. A key
element of the success of the JASSIWG effort is
the consensus and acceptance by both the science
and aircraft engineering communities to a more
common requirements set.
Current JASSIWG activities are focused on
the development of updated aircraft platform
Experimenter Handbooks, using a common
structure and format, and analysis of aircraft
integration requirements to assess potential for
commonality.
During FY09, the working group conducted two
meetings to discuss general approach, planned
work, and consensus documents. The working
group developed a Payload Information Form
(PIF), which will be used by the PI-community
to define needs and requirements for integrating
and flying scientific payloads on NASA Airborne
Science platforms. In addition, a standard
outline, format, and requirements syntax for the
Experiment Handbooks was agreed to. Each of
the centers has agreed to update their respective
handbooks by March 2010. These include the
DC-8, ER-2, WB-57, P-3, G-III, Global Hawk,
Langley B-200/UC-12B, S-3, Twin Otter, Learjet
25, and SIERRA aircraft.
Extensive effort was devoted to extracting,
reviewing, and assessing aircraft requirements
for four of the ASP platforms, the DC-8, ER-
2, WB-57, and P-3. Approximately 850 design,
operational, and safety requirements were
identified for the four platforms, which were put
into spreadsheet form for additional analysis.
These requirements were binned by subsystem
(electrical, mechanical, etc.) and were assessed
for: (1) conditions under which they must be
met by the PI, (2) clarity of description and
syntax, potential redundancy with other similar
requirements, and (3) the degree to which similar
requirements might be made common (standard
practice) across the aircraft.
A web page has been developed as a part of the
Airborne Science Program web site to describe
the function of the working group and to be
the source for the documents generated by the
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