Innovative Development of a Cross-Center Timeline Planning Tool

The Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is the United States focal point to support operations controllers and payload developers conducting payload science operations for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Some of the key functions are planning, coordination and scheduling of science activities. This effort occurs in coordination with other NASA centers, international partners, and payload developers. The ability to efficiently plan and re-plan in response to change is critical to the flight planning teams. Additionally, in Fall 2017, NASA will increase its ability to perform payload science operations aboard the ISS with a fourth crew member. In order to support this, there will be an increasing need to quickly plan and schedule more activities. In the past, it was cumbersome and time-consuming to consolidate copious amounts of planning and change request data from various sources. Planners would summarize information from the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Operations Planning Timeline Integration System (OPTIMIS) and manually integrate it with other data in order to produce a Timeline Planning Summary (TPS). This lengthy process of updating static documents while planning and re-planning was cumbersome, introduced human error, and was inflexible to last minute changes. There was a need for a dynamic, more efficient, less erroneous, and more concise way of building a report that could be readily updated as fast as payload science plans change.