NASA SBIR 2008 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Traclabs, Inc.
8620 N. New Braunfels, Suite 603
San Antonio, TX 78217 - 3586
(210) 822-2310

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
David Kortenkamp
korten@traclabs.com
1012 Hercules
Houston, TX 77058 - 3586
(281) 461-7884

Expected Technology Readiness Level (TRL) upon completion of contract: 4 to 5

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
Procedures are the accepted means of commanding spacecraft. Procedures
encode the operational knowledge of a system as derived from system
experts, testing, training and experience. NASA has tens of thousands
of procedures for Space Shuttle and the International Space Station,
which are used daily by both flight controllers and crew. It is
expected that the new Constellation vehicles, including Orion, Altair
and Lunar habitats, will have thousands of procedures to ensure safe
operation. Currently procedures are executed manually using standard
command and control displays. We are proposing a new paradigm whereby
procedures interact closely with the next generation telemetry and
command displays being developed for NASA and with a procedure
assistant that can automatically dispatch commands and evaluate
telemetry under tight supervision of the operator. The procedure
assistant will consist of an interactive procedure display, a
procedure assistant executive, a set of procedure support services and
an editor for modifying existing procedures or building simple new
procedures. In our paradigm rocedures will be just like any other
component of an integrated suite of mission control tools. This will
greatly enhance the efficiency of flight controllers and reduce
training costs associated with having a separate set of tools for
procedures.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
NASA is currently designing the next generation of mission control
software and displays. This new software will begin rolling out in
the next several years. This makes for perfect timing to infuse new
procedure technology into NASA mission operations. We will work with
NASA JSC Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) personnel such as Alan
Crocker to ensure that our SBIR technology meets NASA's needs. Our
goal is for our software to be a piece of a larger delivery of new
mission control software and displays into Mission Control Center
(MCC).

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
All complex systems, such as nuclear power
plants, oil refineries and petrochemical plants, use procedures as the
core of their operations. Just like current NASA operations, these
procedures are often on paper and are manual. Given the hundreds of
nuclear power plants in the US alone and many more overseas and the
thousands of oil refineries and petrochemical plants the potential
market for software and services that move these industries from paper
to electronic procedures is enormous.

NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING

Autonomous Reasoning/Artificial Intelligence Human-Computer Interfaces