ACE Premier™

Yes, this is a true COTS product line.

Integrated satellite ground system product suite implemented in an SOA-compatible framework architecture. This product suite includes telemetry, command and control; planning and scheduling; flight dynamics; on-board memory management; mission monitoring and analysis; simulation; and system monitoring, control and infrastructure (including automation).

Braxton’s commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) ACE Premier™ spacecraft monitoring and control suite provides integrated satellite telemetry, command and control; planning and scheduling; flight dynamics; on-board memory management; mission monitoring and analysis; physics-based simulation; and system monitoring, control and infrastructure (including automation). This configuration is standards-based, adaptable and expandable. Braxton’s ACE Premier™ suite supports over 40 different LEO, MEO, HEO, GEO, and Molniya-orbit satellites, and currently operates the entire Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellation from Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The design of ACE Premier™ is based on four vertical interactive layers: 1) our COTS applications and services and any desired mission-unique custom plug-ins, 2) shared libraries, 3) our peripheral control language (PCL) data and control transport layer, and 4) a basic communications layer supporting a variety of formats and protocols.

Our products are available as a fully integrated ground system suite (ACE Premier™) or as individual components. The ACE Premier™ suite includes the following COTS applications: ControlPoint™ (AceCP: telecommanding, control and telemetric processing); AceTlmServer (telemetric processing); AceTWS (real-time telemetric analysis, derived measurands processing, and screen development); AceCmdServer (command, control, and status processing); PTP Software (CCSDS); PTP-COP1; AceCPB (user ability to generate command plans); AceWLS (functional vehicle activity schedule management); AceKGC (functional crypto control and status); AceVS (initial mission scheduling capabilities); AceADE (flight dynamics services using high-fidelity orbit and attitude propagators in the underlying astrodynamics engine); AceArchive (initial mission monitoring and analysis capability); AceDAT (functional trending and analysis); AceDBE (telemetrics/ telecommanding list generation, flight software management, mass storage memory management); AceRM (functional fault detection and file copy management); AceMenu (functional desktop access to ACE Premier™ components); AceAdmin (functional database interface to configure access control to ACE Premier™ components); AceSRM (automation management); AceTS (precise time service); WebTLM™ (interfaces for distribution of satellite or booster ground system information and vehicle telemetry over the Internet or company Intranet). Additional software/hardware products are also available.

Product development began in 1994 with the Advanced Control Equipment (ACE) Visual Scheduler (AVS), originally under the product name Fortel. Our COTS TT&C, Mission Planning, and Simulation product development quickly followed over the next few years. Our first customer delivery was in Aug 1999 to OD-4/DZ at Onizuka Air Station. This was a fully integrated COTS-based ground system developed by Braxton Technologies that replaced their legacy Command and Control System (CCS). The system supported 150 Naval Research Office (NRO) supports per day providing ground station/Automated Remote Tracking Station (ARTS) control and status, satellite commanding, satellite telemetry processing/display/archival, operations scheduling (both satellite contact scheduling and system resource scheduling), operations database maintenance support, and logging of satellite support activities. The system also supported all launches performed in OD-4.

Yes, our products are designed to be backward-compatible. Compatibility with all past releases is dependent on database structure changes, with scripts used to configure the database to be used with the current release. Only a full product suite is compatible, different versions of the individual applications can not be mixed between releases.

Yes, a COTS user manual containing detailed installation and configuration instructions is available to product customers.

Our products typically come pre-installed. Re-installation takes less than a man-hour for each product as it only includes running setup programs and entering authorized licenses. No recompiling or re-scripting is necessary, it is all done by database naming string configurations and/or window pull downs and selection trees. We use standardized installation procedures to ensure installation consistency and efficiency without a significant learning curve.

Yes, we offer comprehensive classroom and hands-on simulator training for users and developers. Training includes course materials, and documentation as applicable. Our products also support embedded training in the form of context-sensitive help. The built-in simulation may also be used for formal operations certification and checkout. The built-in tool set also provides for logging and playback, which may be used for both training and training evaluation/improvement.

Braxton’s ACE Premier™ training courses and associated instructional material covers satellite command and control, flight dynamics, mission planning, scheduling, simulation and organizational level maintenance. We tailor our standard instructional material to meet the mission unique requirements of each customer. Our methodology relies heavily on the proven Instructional Systems Design (ISD) process to ensure that the information taught is value added. Braxton has the means to provide Web-based training courses for all of our products using proven COTS technologies.

Our products are easy to use GUI-based. For example, WebTLM is a web-based telemetry tool in which the user can trend and analyze telemetry data. The interface allows the user to select a vehicle and the time range to analyze. The user can view mnemonics in a table or in a graphical display.

The ACE Premier™ products have a drag-and-drop user configuration tool for creating displays. The tool has a set of display “widgets”. There are many different types of widgets for data display. A few examples are Gauges, Charts, Toggles, LEDs, and Dialogs. Widgets can be added to a display by the user during real-time operations or while offline. Once the widget(s) have been added to the display, the user simply drags and drops a Datanode onto the widget to display system information. Datanodes are variables defined to the system to display system information. An example would be a telemetry measurand datanode. The user has the option to save the created display(s) for future utilization.

Yes. Excel and Visio can be used in creation of new displays.

Our software security includes the following: Login is required and functional grouping is a part of the login. Challenge/response authentication is fully implemented and does not send passwords in cleartext across the network. Instead, after a user enters a password that password’s hashed value is presented to a Mission Control Team grouped control point, which then authenticates against the hashed value in the Security Access Manager. No plaintext copy of the password is stored or sent across the network. Various versions of the OS also support different encryption methods for password protection. User profiles can be setup in many ways dependent on the system configuration. Users can change many non-security related preferences while authorized individuals only can change system security parameters. Changes to the profiles are very intuitive and easy. Administration Policies govern the use of all system resources and program files. We protect database items and internal functions from being executed. Critical files are protected and have all the standard sharing features. The way the file/database sharing is setup is determined by the system design. Some installations require more security than others so a trade off of control and flexibly is always considered during system design.

Yes. Braxton’s architecture consists of a COTS (Baseline Product) portion and MUP (Mission Unique Plug-in) portion. The MUP API portion is clearly documented and designed to be modifiable for mission-unique applications (with extensive example and template code). The COTS portion of the ACE Premier™ architecture is also internally documented. Our COTS portion follows guidelines that allow for expansion into cutting edge technologies, which facilitates rapid adoption of new and more efficient methodologies.

Yes. Reuse is a key factor in Braxton’s market approach. Braxton’s extensive library of Mission-Unique Plugin (MUP) modules at the source code level provides for extremely high reuse rates. We consider ourselves to be an industry leader in our rate of software reuse.

Yes, we can import many standard data formats as well as most all AFSCN formatted data files. The Database Editor (AceDBE) converts command and telemetry files, including limit sets and special handling (two’s complement, Gray scale, etc.) into formats needed by the remainder of the ACE Premier™ Product Suite. As new formats are needed, Braxton creates plug-ins to support them.

Yes, Braxton does support an interface that allows for implementation of our system into the GMSEC architecture.

Yes, Braxton provides Mission Unique Plug-ins (MUPs) that handle GMSEC messaging data\service transfer and support items on the GMEC bus.

Our system provides for subscribing to all new values of a measurand. We have both raw data playback and data analysis via our AceDAT (Data Analysis Tool) and our WebTLM (Web Based telemetry analysis tools). We can re-publish raw measurands as well as publish derived measurands in our system. Our API allows applications to obtain status from control ground equipment and to allow applications to request commands be sent. We have an extensive real-time logging system for both mission and system data.

The ACE Premier™ suite of products utilizes a proprietary set of files and databases. Parsing plug-ins are created and added to the AceDBE (DataBase Editior) to ingest mission-specific input files. The output of the AceDBE is Braxton-formatted command and telemetry database files. The AceDBE plug-in can be coded to input any number of different file formats.

Yes, each of the ACE Premier™ products and the Front-End Processors (FEPs) contain multiple report generators. This is not 3rd-party generated; it is bundled as part of the application. The reports are user-tunable with respect to time-period and other assorted filtering inputs.

There is no maximum. ACE Premier™ relies on configuration files to locate command, telemetry, and any other files/database information. Data processing, whether it is telemetry, command, or status, can be processed on one or more servers, on FEPs, or some combination of the two. Alarming, which is handled by the Resource Manager (AceRM) server application, can be run on any machine. For trending purposes, File Copy Manger (AceFCM) migrates information to any location based on user-configurable configuration files.

The system architecture has been designed to allow for flexibility to meet the customer’s needs and requirements. With this stated, the applications can be distributed among several computers to add more fault tolerances or the applications can be run on a single computer if fault tolerance is not needed.

Our architecture is designed to support use and environment variations through use of standardized architecture, and an extensive library of mission-unique plug-ins. When the product environment changes, we determine if our product requires any update to support the change and, if so, what parts of the change should be implemented in our COTS product suite and what parts are appropriate to be developed as a mission-unique plug-in. In particular, it is expected that newer spacecraft will continually be launched, and it is expected that new plug-ins will be identified for each new supported vehicle. This product architecture and sustainment process is highly adaptable and cost effective.

Our product architecture (COTS + mission-unique plug-ins) has been used to support multiple satellite constellations, multiple mission network interfaces and multiple satellite types. Our product architecture also supports outside development when integrated into a larger system. We provide plug-in training and documentation that define our API’s, architecture, and examples (templates) for developing highly customized functionality and adaptability via our plug-ins. Extensive use of our plug-in architecture allowed us to add ground system capabilities to our basic SOC system that extend to evaluate new (adapted) technologies for study.

Braxton’s architecture is built around a core set of applications that support the ability to expand by real-time stream (SV Telecommanding, Telemetrics, or Ground Control) or by string (a complete set of SV Telecommanding, Telemetrics, and Ground Control). When designing a system, our customers are made aware of the ability to simply add additional strings/streams and can easily determine their scalability needs far in advance. The architecture documentation provides the analysis building blocks to enable customer documentation that details specific implementation analysis. The resultant systems strings/streams and resources are dependently tailored.

ACE Premier™ is typically configured as a domain. The scale of the ground system can be increased (or decreased) as needed. This scalability includes the number of hardware strings, which is directly linked to the number of simultaneous contacts, and the number of users. The amount of hardware implemented also depends on the number of telemetry streams. Both the telemetry and commanding rates are variable up to 10Mbps.

a) ACE Premier™ Product Suite scales rapidly as our customers satellite constellation(s) continue to grow in size and complexity. One such example is the GPS LADO program that currently manages the multi- manufacturer GPS constellation. ACE Premier™ has a proven record of accomplishment in rapidly incorporating new GPS satellites scheduled for launch. ACE Premier™ rapid incorporation of new vehicle types, such as the GPS IIF spacecraft, has been clearly demonstrated in the public arena.

b) ACE Premier™ Product Suite, coupled with our Front End Processors (FEPs), manages multiple data streams effectively. Currently, each AceTFE FEP can manage up to four simultaneous telemetry data streams.

c) ACE Premier™ Product Suite manages an unlimited number of telemetry points. Note: We would document clearly any impact due to architectural constraints, such as the use of mandated systems or equipment.

d) ACE Premier™ Product Suite is not limited in the number of “real-time” database telemetry points (measurands) that it can manage. Note: We would document clearly any impact due to architectural constraints, such as the use of mandated systems or equipment.

e) Telemetry data rates are variable, supporting a maximum of 10Mbps.

f) The telemetry system supports derived processing and the scripting language enables user-defined derived values to be created as needed.

g) ACE Premier™ Product Suite ingests satellite manufacturer-delivered CMD databases and converts them to formats used by our command and control product, ControlPoint™.

h) Commanding rates are variable, supporting a maximum of 10Mbps.

i) The number of resources and their processing capabilities, coupled with user capabilities, are the only factors that limit how many users can use ACE Premier™ Product Suite.

j) Our Scheduling tool, AceVS, has scheduled over 1000 tasks distributed across 15 ground-sites in a 24-hour period.

k) Our Workload Scheduler (AceWLS) manages all internal command and control resources and supports any size ground system.

Yes. We maintain a long-term strategy (“roadmap”) for product development based on the direction of the space and satellite communities. Our API is designed to facilitate expansion and extension of the general plug-in categories, too. This allows Braxton to increase capability on the standard interfaces (e.g. TLM, Cmd, Orbit, Attitude, Maneuver) while enabling us to extend these categories to mission-unique areas such as image dump, memory uploads, dumps dwells, constellation management, formation flying considerations, launch operations etc.

Yes. The ACE Premier™ product suite is currently used to manage the GPS constellation.

Yes. Our Resource Manager, AceRM, provides automated and user-assisted fault recovery (depending on the failure mode). Fault determinant testing involves front-end periodic statusing, task level feedback, non-response algorithms etc.

All failures are reported to the network devices and to the Resource Manager.

Database replication and AceFCM ensure all components containing both current and archived information. The specific configuration will be dictated by user requirements.

While using the system for commanding or performing State of Health (SOH) on a contact, users can quickly bring the contact up on another workstation if a problem is encountered on the primary workstation.