Our aerospace customers are demanding that we drastically reduce the cost of operating and supporting our products. Our space customer in particular is looking for the next generation of reusable launch vehicle systems to support more aircraft like operation. To achieve this goal requires more than an evolution in materials, processes and systems, what is required is a paradigm shift in the design of the launch vehicles and the processing systems that support the launch vehicles. This paper describes the Automated Informed Maintenance System (AIM) we are developing for NASA's Space Launch Initiative (SLI) Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). Our system includes an Integrated Health Management (IHM) system for the launch vehicles and ground support systems, which features model based diagnostics and prognostics. Health Management data is used by our AIM decision support and process aids to automatically plan maintenance, generate work orders and schedule maintenance activities along with the resources required to execute these processes. Our system will automate the ground processing for a spaceport handling multiple RLVs executing multiple missions. To accomplish this task we are applying the latest web based distributed computing technologies and application development techniques.

Date Published: 16 July 2002
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 4733, Component and Systems Diagnostics, Prognostics, and Health Management II, (16 July 2002); doi: 10.1117/12.475511

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4733:
Component and Systems Diagnostics, Prognostics, and Health Management II
Peter K. Willett; Thiagalingam Kirubarajan, Editor(s)