Flight Dynamics Microservices

Abstract

Spacecraft operations require smooth and reliable product transfer between the control center subsystems, and the external entities. Compared to the popular data-driven approach for exchanging products, the service-oriented architecture provides a high level of modularity, high flexibility in deployment, and scalability. Therefore, the Flight Dynamics section at the German Space Operations Center (GSOC/DLR) started to establish microservices, which provide the fight dynamic core functionality to dedicated users via network services. A set of wrapped, high level core libraries is connected to web services, which provide data products on request. Within this paper, the overall service design as well as details like the connection between high-level languages and server interfaces are described. The paper clearly shows the feasibility of dedicated flight dynamic services within the mission operation segment. Services save time, may help reducing the amount of transferred data, increase repeatability, and provide monitoring of requests for traceability.