XML technology enables redesigned deep space network operations

NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) provides telecommunication support for NASA's space exploration missions. Successful support relies on a great deal of information about each mission from equipment type to trajectory and encounter times. In the past, with only a handful of missions to support, this information was collected manually and telecommunication services were agreed upon manually. In the future, with an order of magnitude more missions flying, the DSN must automate its processes. The barriers to automation in the DSN environment are many: heterogeneous computing environments, legacy systems, existing procedures, etc. We advocate the use of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) as an enabling technology in our quest to automate DSN operations. In our development we are leveraging XML technology to solve several information exchange problems. This paper discusses three applications of XML to DSN automation: (1) the service request process, (2) legacy application integration, and (3) a DSN portal.