The SSR Manager™ developed by Orbit Logic is used today to manage the onboard recorders and plan all downlinks for QuickBird-2 and WorldView-1, and has been delivered and passed acceptance testing for use on the GeoEye-1 mission planned for launch later in 2008. All current U.S. commercial imaging satellites use Orbit Logic software for recorder management and downlink planning. SSR Manager may be configured by Orbit Logic to support any file based or linear/circular buffer type recorder for any satellite.
The SSR Manager™ automatically tracks and predicts the state of an onboard recorder and plans the downlink of image files and telemetry files from the recorder based on the latest ground station contact schedule, confirmed activity plans and downlink confirmation status messages from the command system. No operator action is required since the SSR Manager performs all downlink planning and state tracking automatically based on the mission rule-set, configurable parameters, and latest input data.
The SSR Manager™ GUI allows an operator to review and edit the latest SSR management plan, and notifies the operator if manual edits cause an SSR violation. The window provides a tabular view of all events that impact SSR state including contact events and image record/downlink/protection and deletion events. A sample snapshot of a sample SSR Manager is provided below:
In addition to the event display, the SSR Manager™ provides an SSR State Display. The operator selects an event from the Event Display and clicks on the Display State button to bring up a new window with the detailed state of the recorder at that end time of the selected event. The detailed state information includes a list of all files on the recorder, their location, priority, generation time, and other attributes, as well as summary-level recorder information including remaining space available.
The SSR Manager™ has several configurable parameters associated with record and downlink data rates and general file management including downlink order based on priority and file creation time.
A new XML file Downlink Plan is generated a configurable number of minutes prior to each scheduled ground station contact and sent to the command system for uplink. This transmission is automatic, but may also be requested manually by the operator. The Downlink Plans generated cover the period from uplink contact until the next uplink contact. Automated downlink plan generation requires only a few seconds per contact using the SSR Manager.