Concept of operations

About: Concept of operations is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 964 publications have been published within this topic receiving 6845 citations. The topic is also known as: CONOPS.

Architecture Considerations for Crewed Lunar Surface Expeditionary Utility Lander Systems

Abstract: This study introduces a crewed landing craft for missions to celestial bodies with little to no atmosphere. The design is the result of analysis on the future of lunar surface operations, logistics, and the concept of operations involving lunar hopper vehicles. The proposed system can deploy equipment and conduct operations while sustaining a crew of ten people for up to 120 days. The vehicle launches as a payload from the SpaceX Starship. The design's function and simplicity enable high volume production while meeting the rigorous technical and quality standards for human spaceflight. The study provides top-down analysis of the design requirements and tracks the fulfillment of those requirements. The architecture analysis reviews commercial, military, and scientific expeditionary logistics functions and outlines the appropriate parallel requirements for lunar surface operations. Primary spacecraft design requirements are derived and extrapolated from NASA's NextSTEP-2 Appendix H: Human Lander System and other proven flight systems. Results from a survey of requirements from end users specializing in mining, excavation, and in-situ resource utilization are presented and the results incorporated into the design. Among the proposed solutions are arguments for designing for multiple fuel types to be used by a single propulsion system, expanding the CubeSat standard for facilitating physical interfaces between systems within a spacecraft. The study concludes with the final design proposal and a way ahead to deliver a spacecraft capable of responding to national initiatives for lunar surface exploration, innovation, and utilization. The result is a relatively low-cost system capable of entering production today for use by government customers and private industry, especially the mining, excavation, and construction industries.

Exploration Systems Architecture Study: Concept for More Affordable and Sustainable Ground Operations

Abstract: *Ground operations and infrastructure for human space exploration at the launch site was an important element of NASA’s recent Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS). This paper documents the architectural concept of operations and the key design challenges, considerations, and constraints—thus covering the overall rationale of the ground operations elements of the ESAS reference architecture. Driving this architecture was a constant assessment of the non-recurring affordability and the recurring operational performance and sustainability of the total ground system. The paper further describes the structured approach at defining the total ground system and insuring that as many ground operations and infrastructure functions were addressed so as to arrive at realistic cost estimates. Finally, the paper outlines the major operability and supportability drivers that were developed during the ESAS effort to encourage flight system concepts that were inherently simpler and more easily supported by the ground crew.

Human Factors and Ergonomics’ Contribution to the Definition of a New Concept of Operations: The Case of Innovative Small Modular Reactors

Abstract: Contributing to the earliest phases of design is an old challenge of Human Factors and Ergonomics (HF&E) experts. If HF&E contributions to Basic Design and Detailed Design of Nuclear Power Plants is acknowledge, HF&E experts’ contributions to earlier phase of design like Conceptual Design or pre-conceptual design (PCD) are not frequent. Therefore, if participation of HF&E experts to the earliest phase of systems design is not new, up to our knowledge, there is no already described, validated and structured HF&E method to contribute to a pre-conceptual design (PCD) phase. The aim of the PCD phase is to prepare and address the scientific issues of a proposed new design. From an HF&E point of view, the scientific issues are related to the concept of operations envisioned for the new system. The paper presents the approach we are currently leading at EDF R&D during the PCD phase of the design of innovative small modular reactors (ISMR) in order to define its concept of operations. This approach is based on several methods we propose to articulate in order to contribute to fill the lack of described and validated HF&E method to contribute to PCD. The theoretical foundations of our approach are based on work analyses in reference work situations [1] and operational analysis [2]. The paper describes each step of the approach developed and the organizational conditions for the participation of HF&E experts into PCD.

Systems Concurrent Engineering of an Electric Bike

Abstract: This paper presents a systems concurrent engineering approach for the development of an electric bike. Traditional approaches focuses on the product, development organization and the product concepts of operation (CONOPS). In those approaches the overall view of the inherent complexity in the development of a product, its life cycle processes and their performing organizations are not taken into consideration. The systems concurrent engineering performs stakeholder analysis, requirements analysis, functional analysis and implementation architecture analysis, simultaneously, for the product, its life cycle processes and their performing organization. From the analysis, requirements and attributes are captured for the product and its life cycle processes organizations and the relationship among them are identified. Conclusions are that impact, traceability and hierarchy links promote the anticipation of life cycle process requirements to the early stages of systems architecting. Late changes are avoided, development costs are dramatically reduced while satisfaction of stakeholders over product life cycle is increased.

Concept of Operations for a Prospective "Proving Ground" in the Lunar Vicinity

Abstract: NASA is studying conceptual architectures for a "Proving Ground" near the Moon or in high lunar orbit to conduct human space exploration missions that bridge the gap between today's operations with the International Space Station (ISS) and future human exploration of Mars beginning in the 2030s. This paper describes the framework of a concept of operations ("Conops") for candidate activities in the Proving Ground. The Conops discusses broad goals that the Proving Ground might address, such as participation from commercial entities, support for human landings on the Moon, use of mature technologies, and growth of capability through a steady cadence of increasingly ambitious piloted missions. Additional Proving Ground objectives are outlined in a companion paper. Key elements in the Conops include the Orion spacecraft (with mission kits for docking and other specialized operations) and the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket. Potential additions include a new space suit, commercial launch vehicles and logistics carriers, Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) stages to move elements between different orbits and eventually take them on excursions to deep space, a core module with multiple docking ports, a habitation block, and robotic and piloted lunar landers. The landers might include reusable ascent modules which could remain docked to in-space elements between lunar sorties. A module providing advanced regenerative life support functions could launch to the ISS, and later move to the Proving Ground. The architecture will include infrastructure for launch preparation, communication, mission control, and range safety. The Conops describes notional missions chosen to guide the design of the architecture and its elements. One such mission might be the delivery of a approximately 10-t Transit Habitat element, comanifested with Orion on a Block 1B SLS launcher, to the Proving Ground. In another mission, the architecture might participate in direct human exploration of an asteroidal boulder brought to high lunar orbit by the Asteroid Redirect Mission. The Proving Ground stack could serve as a staging point and tele-operation center for robotic and piloted Moon landings. With the addition of a SEP stage, the architecture could support months-long excursions within and beyond the Earth's sphere of influence, possibly culminating in a year-long mission to land humans on a near-Earth asteroid. In the last case, after returning to near-lunar space, two of the asteroid explorers could join two crewmembers freshly arrived from Earth for a Moon landing, helping to quantify the risk of landing deconditioned crews on Mars. In a conceptual mission particularly stressing to system design, Proving Ground elements could transit to Mars orbit. Other possible design-driving operations include relocation of the stack with no crew on board, the unpiloted journey of the advanced life support module from ISS to the lunar vicinity, excursions to other destinations in near-Earth space, and additional support for Mars exploration in conjunction with the Evolvable Mars Campaign. The Proving Ground Conops concludes with a discussion of aborts and contingency operations