ATACS- Automated Targeting And Checkout System

ATACS will produce a demonstration of a capability to rapidly analyze the feasibility of a mission profile. ATACS will analyze vehicle performance for the given trajectory and payload and provide a recommendation of viability and generate the Mission Data Load for the vehicle’s flight software with artifacts required to execute the mission. All pre-flight analysis which previously took up to 6 months is expected to be reduced by orders of magnitude. (the goal is minutes) The ATACS system will provide a cohesive user interface allowing mission managers to select vehicles, payloads and target impact or rendezvous locations. All parameters required to analyze feasibility of the mission will be prompted using a wizard-like interface. All steps in the analysis will be automated and provide feedback to the user indicating a probability of success for the given scenario. Once the user accepts the mission profile, all Mission Data Load artifacts will be prepared and loaded to the target vehicle. For demonstration, the Minotaur I/XSS-11 payload which has been successfully flown and will be duplicated using the ATACS toolset and verified for accuracy against Mission Data Loads prepared by Orbital Science Corporation’s engineers. Metrics will be tabulated to allow performance measurement and verification.