A planning approach to monitor and control for deep space communications

In recent years with the large increase in the number of space missions at NASA and JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), the demand for deep space communications services to command and collect data from these missions has become more difficult to manage. In an attempt to increase the efficiency of operating deep space communications antennas, we are developing a prototype system to perform monitor, control, execution and recovery in order to automate the operations of the Deep Space Network (DSN) communication antenna stations. The authors describe the antenna automation problem, the GASPER planning and scheduling system, how GASPER is used to generate antenna track plans and perform monitor and control during execution, and future work utilizing dynamic planning technology.