Data Gathering
Mission Analysis
We identified a few areas where improvements could be made within the process relating to the data
flow and science intent, and verified those areas in subsequent observations
at MER during the Extended Mission. We focused on 5 primary areas for improvement in the
process:
Science Data Request Tracking
Scientists wanted to quickly obtain information about whether or not their
activities were included in the plan uplinked to the rover, or if they were
executed by the rover. Additionally, scientists wanted quick access to data products
related to executed activities or their downlink status.
Verification of Unique Data
Scientists and other planning stakeholders wanted to quickly know if they
were going to repeat an activity that had already been executed by the rover.
Science Activity Re-use
Re-using activities that were previously executed on the rover is a very desirable
way to create valid plans. In the current process, it was often difficult for
scientists to re-use activities because all of the information needed to specify
that activity was not always captured within the details for the activity.
Science Intent Documentation
Although the activity details in SAP provides a place for the scientists to
convey their science intent for the activity in a notes field, these fields
were not always utilized and were not standardized. The SOWG documentarian had
to rely on her note-taking ability and on her memory to retain much of the science
intent. In addition, when bonus science activities were included in the final
plan because of available rover resources, additional scientists might have
to be called upon late in the science planning process to review the intent
for those activities.
Science Activity Removal
During the final stages of the science
activity planning process, activities that had been specified were often excluded from constraint application and entry into the optimized scheduler
based on human predictions about what the optimized scheduler might do with
the plan.