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Accuracy on weather prediction is a significant factor on present models of air traffic and planning, and will be a key factor on future advanced models in many areas and activities, and we can envision advanced human emotion models with weather as a key component. As part of this research effort, this paper addresses the development of three-layer architecture for hourly distribution of an accurate 24-hour global aviation weather prediction and a multivariate analysis of the aviation weather data provided by NOAA's National Weather Service.

The virtual test bed for launch and range operations developed at NASA Ames Research Center consists of various independent expert systems advising on weather effects, toxic gas dispersions and human health risk assessment during space-flight operations. An individual dedicated server supports each expert system and the master system gather information from the dedicated servers to support the launch decision-making process. Since the test bed is based on the web system, reducing network traffic and optimizing the knowledge base is critical to its success of real-time or near real-time operations. Jess, a fast rule engine and powerful scripting environment developed at Sandia National Laboratory has been adopted to build the expert systems providing robustness and scalability. Jess also supports XML representation of knowledge base with forward and backward chaining inference mechanism.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board issued a major recommendation to NASA. Prior to return to flight, NASA should develop and implement a comprehensive inspection plan to determine the structural integrity of all Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) system components. This inspection plan should take advantage of advanced non-destructive inspection technology. This paper describes a non-intrusive technology with a micro-flying robot to continuously monitor inside a space vehicle for any stress related fissures, cracks and foreign material embedded in walls, tubes etc.

This paper discussed how data mining techniques could give advantage to the robot in navigation, in terms of speed. The input of our navigation system is the sensory information collected by the robot's equipped landmark sensor and infra-red sensor, the process of the system is the proposed data mining technique, and the output of the system is the execution of the moving direction in a 2D Martian environment. The results demonstrate efficient goal-oriented navigation using data mining techniques.

Launch operations require millions of micro-decisions which contribute to the macro decision of ‘Go/No-Go’ for a launch. “Knowledge workers” (such as managers and technical professionals) need information in a timely precise manner as it can greatly affect mission success. The intelligent agent (web search agent) uses the words of a hypertext markup language document which is connected through the internet. The intelligent agent’s actions are to determine if its goal of seeking a website containing a specified target (e.g., keyword or phrase), has been met. There are few parameters that should be defined for the keyword search like “Go” and “No-Go”. Instead of visiting launch and range decision making servers individually, the decision facilitator constantly connects to all servers, accumulating decisions so the final decision can be decided in a timely manner.

The debris dispersion model during launch is so heterogeneous and interrelated with various factors; 3D graphics combined with physical models are useful in understanding the complexity of launch and range operations. Modeling and simulation in this area mainly focuses on orbital dynamics and range safety concepts, including destruct limits, telemetry and tracking, and population risk. Particle explosion modeling is the process of simulating an explosion by breaking the rocket into many pieces. The particles are scattered throughout their motion using the laws of physics eventually coming to rest. The size of the foot print explains the type of explosion and distribution of the particles. The shuttle launch and range operations discussed in this paper are based on the operations of the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA. Java 3D graphics provides geometric and visual content with suitable modeling behaviors of Shuttle launches.

This work addresses various real-time model interactions in order to make an efficient Internet based decision support tool for Shuttle launches. This tool depends on launch commit criteria coupled with physics based models. Dynamic interaction between a wide variety of simulation applications and techniques, embedded algorithms, and data visualizations are needed to exploit the full potential of modeling and simulation. This paper also discusses web based 3-D graphics and its application to range safety. The advantages of this dynamic model integration are secure accessibility and distribution of real time information to other NASA centers in support of launch operations.