K-1 integrated vehicle health management system: design for operational efficiency

Kistler Aerospace Corporation is developing the world's first commercial, fully reusable aerospace vehicle. The two-stage K-1 vehicle is designed to significantly reduce the cost of reliably delivering payloads to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and to provide rapid launch response and schedule flexibility. The K-1 operability philosophy is similar to that of late-generation commercial aircraft, such as the Boeing 777. The vehicle's on-board systems are continually monitored for performance versus expected and this performance data is used for both in-flight and maintenance turn-around actions. The in-flight decisions are made, without a person-in-the-loop, to maximize the mission success. The operations crew on the ground obtains early visibility on the performance during the flight so they are prepared to perform the necessary actions to prepare the K-1 for the next flight. This paper discusses the avionics architecture, which is implemented with both managed and committed hardware redundancies. The managed redundancy exists in the triplex computing complexes and the committed redundancy exists in the dual pyrotechnic, valve, and motor effectors. The paper will discuss the avionics design and the implementation of the vehicle health management system.