About the Catalog of Spaceflight Terminology

This work is a living catalog of broad but key terms (and their definitions from various sources) associated with the disciplines of astronautics (spaceflight) and to lesser degree astronomy. The former includes space situational awareness (SSA), space sustainability, space policy & law, and space traffic management and coordination.

The project will provide a living comparative analysis toward products and recommendations for the community, aiming for terminological synchronization, semantic interoperability, and conceptual model development. Example terms includes: ‘astronautics’, ‘spaceflight’, ‘orbital debris’, ‘ssa’, ‘stm’, ‘space’, ‘spacecraft’, ‘orbit’, etc. Contact here. Example sources include aerospace dictionaries, standards organizations documents, space agency docs., etc.

Goals

To clarify concepts and terminoloy
To provide a non-exhaustive catalog of key generic terms and their various definitions (serving as a general reference).
To examine and compare terms and those definitions (semantic, conceptual analysis).
To identify inaccuracies & errors
To make recommendations for improvements or changes
To create vocabularies for stakeholders, whether bespoke services or pre-made
To inform the development of the knowledge modeling activities, e.g., the authors ontologies for astronautics
To offer consistence, coherent, and accurate knowledge models or vocabulary, where desired.
To help improve existing knowledge organization systems for space.

Photo of the catalog of spaceflight terms

Broader applicability & Associated projects

It is a task in the author’s Space Knowledge Modeling project, and related projects by Robert Rovetto.
Some content used in the AIAA Space Traffic Management Working Group Lexicon sub-group and Report 1 (2019-2021).
Some content used in International Astronautical Federation (IAF), Space Traffic Management Technical Committee (2020-2022).

Status

In-progress, subject to revision, currently unfunded, and open to formal support.
As a personal project, donations, sponsors, and formal sustainable support are welcome and needed.

Access

Support - How you can help

If you find value in this work, please formally support it to sustain development:

Donate (PayPal)
Donate here (Gogetfunding) or Fund here.
Hire me or establish a formal work partnership: Schedule a Meeting here. Contact.
As an aspiring PhD student, worldwide, consider inviting me to enroll as your student.

Author & Developer

Robert J. Rovetto - Schedule, hire, or purchase services or Contact.

Concept Engineer - Knowledge representation/modeling, Formal ontology, Terminology, Research, Philosophy. Relevant Activity & Output:

Co-lead lexicon topics; Commitee member, and SME on ontology in AIAA
Contributing co-author to ANSI/AIAA S-153-2021 national standard
Member providing ontology input, Consultative Committee for Space Data Standards
Drafted a co-authored terminology paper and report as committee member of groups in International Astronautical Federation

Copyright

©2023, Robert J. Rovetto. All right reserved. Not authorized for commercial use unless explicitly negotiated with the author. Citation/attribution required. No warranty. Presented “AS IS”. Author and copyright holder is not liable. All content, work and products are subject to revision. No claims to completeness.