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For many people, Artificial Intelligence is intimidating. They imagine robots in control.
At Stottler-Henke, the working definition of artificial intelligence is the mimicking of human thought processes to solve useful problems.
And, for those who plan and schedule NASA missions, using artificial intelligence has become standard practice.
In the early 1990s, Stottler-Henke, a small firm in San Mateo, California, began partnering with NASA through the
Agency's Small Business Innovation Research, or SBIR Program.
Working with engineers at Kennedy Space Center's Mission Planning Office,
the firm created an "Automated Manifest Planner, " or "AMP."
"We go through and sort of record his thought processes and then
figure how to develop software that goes through the same process that he goes through."
AMP automates resource selection and scheduling for many different planning scenarios
and helps to develop the long-term shuttle processing schedule and launch dates.
Eventually, the mission planning and scheduling activities were turned over to the United Space Alliance.
AMP gave the group a head start, and since 1993, it's been used continuously for the missions.
Based on its success, Stottler Henke received an SBIR award from Johnson Space Center to evolve AMP into a product
that could schedule the activities of the shuttle crew while in space.
Enter the Intelligent Flight Activity Planner, or IFAP. IFAP is now part of NASA's Consolidated Planning System.
AMP was also the genesis for another product. Stottler Henke received SBIR funding from Kennedy to create software for
scheduling and planning at the Cape's International Space Station Processing Facility.
This time, they took a slightly different approach.
"We systematically looked at every planning and scheduling system we had ever developed and looked at all the decisions
that a planning and scheduling system has to make and designed and built an architecture such
that it was very easy to customize every one of those individual decisions."
The company produced AURORA, which is still being used at the processing facility.
For Stottler-Henke, Aurora is one of their greatest commercial successes.
The United Space Alliance now uses AURORA-AMP. And, they have chosen AURORA to be the on-board
planner/scheduler they're creating for astronauts to use on the Crew Exploration vehicle.
A major aircraft manufacturer is also using AURORA to help build its newest commercial aircraft.
Under an SBIR contract from Marshall Space Flight Center, the company
developed a product called "Task-Tutor Toolkit" to help train astronauts.
"What we looked at was a way to build an intelligent tutoring system that could basically fill the role of the instructor looking
over a student's shoulder while they're using a simulation."
The firm has also applied that technology to help the Air Force train satellite operators.
With an SBIR award from Ames Research Center, the firm developed training software called "Earth Tutor"
for Earth Science Satellite Imagery applications. Earth Tutor has become a NASA-approved software.
And, today, Stottler-Henke is working with researchers and trainers at Johnson Space Center to develop scenario-based training
software that will help flight controllers and astronauts train for NASA's future exploration missions.