NOTE: The SSAO owl file and other content in the SSAO github repository is being moved to https://github.com/rrovetto/Orbital-Space-Ontology-Project for more centralize storage. The SSAO GitHub repository will remain onsite for the time being, but will have a pointer to the above and to a link to the owl file.
Description
The SSA ontology (SSAO) is an ontology of the space situational awareness (SSA) domain [2], aka the space domain. It provides a defined terminology for SSA concepts and objects. It includes categories and non-categorical relations fomrally defined in computable languages. These constructs are linked in a manner to mirror the target domain. The scope of SSAO, and its domain, minimally includes that which affords awareness and knowledge of the orbital and near-Earth space environment. This consists of observation, detection, identification, tracking, re-identification, and propagation (prediction of future behavior/motion) activities of objects in orbit.
In addition to these SSA activities, observations & measurements, and events in orbit & the orbital objects themselves must be ontologically represented. The relationships between these entities are also critical to fully capture the overall orbital space environment domain [3][4]. Ontology terms for these entities may constitute sub-domain space ontologies–such as the orbital debris ontology, the orbital event ontology, and so forth, each of which can be imported into the SSAO. Alternatively, such terms can be terms directly part of the SSAO. These ontology architectures are under consideration.
The SSAO is a modular part of a broader project, which aims to create a suite of ontologies for the space domain (broadly construed). Some goals are to explore the utility of applying ontology to SSA data, e.g., potential for data-sharing and fusion, data integration among space object catalogues and other SSA databases; automated reasoning, knowledge discovery and semantic and systems interoperability.
A focus is awareness of orbital space surrounding Earth, toward ensuring the safety and security of Earth and space-borne assetts (satellites, etc.). However, give the more generic (upper-level) classification goal, the SSAO aims to be generalized to any central body. SSAO aims to formally and computationally represent the relationships between objects near Earth (or any planetary reference frame), and annotate orbital and other SSA instance data to potentially facilitate data-sharing and integration among disparate data sources.
Example Applications
The SSAO has been used by an ontology-driver orrery project by NASA’s Dan O’Neil. This work resulted in this NASA Technical document.
Status
- Under development. Subject to revision. As unfunded work, donations and sponsors are welcome and appreciated.
- Formal support is needed: financial, educaitonal, technical support is need to sustain development.
- Persons interested in applying to grants with the author should contact.
Author / Creator / Developer
Robert J. Rovetto
Selected Publications
- [1]“An Ontological Architecture for Orbital Debris Data”, Rovetto, R.J. (Aug 6 2015) Earth Science Informatics, 9(1), 67-82 (submitted 2014). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. DOI: 10.1007/s12145-015-0233-3
- [2]“Preliminaries of a Space Situational Awareness Ontology”, Rovetto,R.J. & T.S. Kelso. (Forthcoming) Advances in Astronautical Sciences, Univelt. Presented at 26th AIAA/AAS Space Flight Mechanics meeting, Napa, CA, USA Feb 14-18th, 2016.
- [3]”The Orbital Space Environment and Space Situational Awareness Domain Ontology – Towards an International Information System for Space Data”, Rovetto, R.J. The Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference (AMOS) 2016, (Paper, and Poster presentation)
Copyright
(c) Copyright 2011-2022, Robert J. Rovetto. All rights reserved.