Iverson: Well, there are a number of different techniques that have been applied. A lot of them look at individual parameters from whatever system you are watching, like temperatures, or electrical current, and let you know if that parameter is running high or low. You can set limits that you expect that parameter to stay within. Those techniques are still in common use; they’re still a good basic approach to take.

IMS looks at multiple parameters at once and figures out how they relate to each other, how each part of the system behaves relative to the other parameters. That can give you a better picture of what you can expect to see in the system and you might be able to catch some unusual activity or anomalies before any individual parameter reaches a limit.

NTB: I understand it took five years for you to develop this software. What were some of the technical obstacles your team had to overcome?

Iverson: Well, it’s been, on and off, about five years that the software’s been evolving over time. We’ve applied it to several different projects and platforms. Part of the trick with a system like this is, you need to find good data to work with to build your model or system characterization, and it helps to have a person with system experience to point you in the right direction and explain what the data means. Accessible data and knowledgeable people can be scarce resources.

But we’ve come across a few different opportunities that had nice clean data and helpful folks to keep us oriented. I guess that was probably the major challenge that we ran across – getting access to good, clean data.

NTB: How rigorous was the beta testing program before you felt comfortable enough to install it in the Space Station?

Iverson: Well, of course, the Johnson Space Center has a verification process for each piece of software that’s used in mission control. And we are in the middle of that right now. What’s involved is making sure the code does what you expect it to do with different data inputs, making sure that it runs properly on the mission control computers, and a lot of the evaluation has been done by the controllers themselves. We’ve been running on the ADCO (Attitude Determination and Control Officer) console in the mission control room for the Space Station, in an uncertified mode, so the software is there, up and running, and they can watch it and see how it works. But since it hasn’t been fully certified yet, they don’t use it for their actual control decisions.

We’re hoping for certification in the next couple of months. A lot of the process depends on the availability of some very busy people at JSC (Johnson Space Center) to help get the whole package put together. If all goes well, we may be able to get it certified before the next shuttle launch in October. That’s our hope.