The Orbital Space Environment Domain Ontology (or OSEDO) is a knowledge modeling effort by Robert J. Rovetto to create a standard formally defined vocabulary and knowledge model for the astronautical domain. Contact: rrovetto[at]terpalum[dot]umd[dot]edu. I want the resulting ontologies (and thus metadata) to be used by the community. But I also want to help build ontologies (aka knowledge graphs) for organizations & academia projects.
NEWS!! : Latest paper presented at the 1st International Orbital Debris Conference.
Status & How you can help
- NEED either sponsors, an employer, or a studentship to realize this project.
- SEEKING professors interested in me as a student to return to university for this, or a similar, project. And seeking mentors and an interdisciplianry team to develop it fully.
- INVITE me to work on your project. Or invite me as a contractor, visiting researcher, or consultant
- DONATE HERE or Become a patron HERE
- JOIN – Open to collaborative development; seeking partners, and interdisicpliary team
- Also SEEKING applicaitons for these ontologies, and coauthors for grant proposals
| Project Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Goals | A) A standard semantics for astronautical data and terms (metadata), via a… B) suite of formal ontologies & taxonomies that… C) provides a common knowledge model (and sharable vocabulary) across federated space situational awareness (SSA) databases and space object catalogs, in order to… D) enrich space object characterization; annotate/tag data, visualizations and simulations; and improve information exchange, data fusion, search & retrieval, processing, semantic interoperability, automated reasoning, classification, etc. F) To therefore serve as upper level or domain reference ontologies for other ontologies, and the community, F) Perform philosophical & formal analysis of fundamental domain concepts, G) And use these formal methods to resolve space policy, terminology & definitional challenges H) Other ideas? – please contact me…let’s work together! |
| Scope | To ontologically model: orbital objects (spacecraft, their parts; debris; etc.), SSA, STM, spacecraft operations & maneuvers, the orbital & near-Earth space environment, astronautics, and applications thereof. See Orbital Debris Ontology, (Presentation), or (Rovetto & Kelso, 2016) |
| Status & Desiderata | NEEDs opportunity to sustainably develop. To date–since conception in 2011–this has been unfunded and independently pursued by the author. Need partners and team. Open to community development/input. Ontoogies subject to revision or merger. No claims to completeness are made. |
Ontologies to be developed
| Ontology Name | Description | Link to OWL File | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Orbital Debris Ontology (ODO) | An ontology of orbital debris objects and their properties. See publication (1 ),(8) | (Contact Author) Near Future: the ODO OWL file will be located at https://purl.org/space-ontology/odo.owl |
NEEDs funding or work opportunity to continue development. Seeking funding & partners. |
| The Space Situational Awareness Ontology (SSAO) | An ontology of the SSA (or space) domain, minimally of activities yielding knowledge of orbital space environment. See pub. (2) | (Contact Author) Near Future: the SSAO OWL file will be located at https://purl.org/space-ontology/ssao.owl |
NEEDs funding or work opportunity. Seeking partners. Name subject to change (tbd). |
| Orbital Ontology Core (The orbitology ontology) (OO) | An ontology containing the core orbital concepts used by ODO, SSAO, etc. A general-purpose base ontology to model any orbit from inputted instance data. Can be imported into other ontologies needing orbital concepts. | TBD | NEEDs funding or work opportunity to continue development. |
| OSO/OSDO/OSEDO - The Orbital Space Ontology / Orbital Space Domain Ontology / Orbital Space Environment Ontology | A single ontology file containing the above modules. The SSAO may be renamed accordingly. A generic formal represenation for the orbital space about any celestial body or astronomical reference frame. | TBD | NEEDs funding or opportunity to continue development. |
| The Space Mission Ontology | An ontology of space mission design and system concepts. A module to focus on the mission-level, but which draws on concepts from other modules, such as spacecraft ontology. | TBD | NEEDs funding or opportunity to develop. Seeking partners. |
| The Space Traffic Management Ontology | An ontology of STM concepts. | TBD | NEEDs funding or opportunity to develop. Seeking partners. |
| The Orbital Object Ontology | An ontology of all objects and their parts in orbit | TBD | NEEDs funding or work opportunity. Seeking partners. |
| The Orbital Event Ontology | An ontology of events occuring in orbit | TBD | NEEDs funding or opportunity. Seeking partners. |
| The Spacecraft/SpaceSystem Ontology | An ontology of spacecraft, their systems and parts | TBD | NEEDs funding or work opportunity to development. Seeking partners. |
| The Union of Concerned Scientists Satellite Database Ontology (UCSSO) | A database-specific ontology for the UCS Satellite Database . Uses terms from the other ontologies to demonstrate reuse. | https://purl.org/space-ontology/ucsso | Preliminary version complete, but subject to revisions when/if requested by users or the UCS. |
Misc.
- SSAO has been used by an ontology-driver orrery project at NASA.
- Other ontologies to be developed: Space Weather ontology (SWO), Astrodynamics Modeling Ontology (AMO), Space Object Ontology, Near-Earth Space Environment Ontology (NESEO).
Benefits
- These ontologies can be used by space agencies, their data resources or ontologies, e.g., ESI/NASA SWEET ontologies, USAF & DoD projects, IVOA ontologies, EU-funded projects, university or PhD projects, etc.
- Potential for innovation in teaching by applying ontologies to space visualizations/graphical-simulations, and conceptual modeling.
- Potential for reducing complexity in programming by providing a thorough knowledge model
- …
Publications
The following publications were unfunded, independently pursued, and not associated with past or present affiliations.
- In-progress (2017-present): An Ontology Oriented Orrery (NASA Technical Manual) with Dr. D.A.O’Neil.
- Proposal (2018): “Ontology Engineering for Space Systems, Missions, and NASA Data”, NASA Fellowship Activity 2018, NASA Research Announcement NNH18ZHA003N.
-
White Paper (2019): “Big Data in Space: Improving Spaceflight Safety through Knowledge-based Approaches” (with Dr.Joanne Luciano, University of Virgin Islands)
-
(1) “An Ontological Architecture for Orbital Debris Data ”, Rovetto, R.J. (Aug 6 2015) Earth Science Informatics, 9(1), 67-82 (Online 2015). DOI: 10.1007/s12145-015-0233-3. Download Paper (PDF) here, or here
-
(2) “Preliminaries of a Space Situational Awareness Ontology ”_, Rovetto, R,J. and Kelso, T.S. In proceedings of 26th AIAA/AAS Space Flight Mechanics meeting, Napa, California, Feb 14-18th, 2016. Advances in the Astronautical Sciences, Univelt Inc. Download Paper, Download PPT Presentation
-
(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. Download Poster.
-
(4) “Orbital Space Environment and Space Situational Awareness Domain Ontology”, Rovetto, R.J. In CEUR workshop proceedings for The Joint Ontology Workshops, at the 9th International Conference of Formal Ontology for Information Systems (FOIS) Early Career Symposium, Annecy, France July 2016. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1660/ecs-paper1.pdf
-
(5) “Ontology Architectures for the Orbital Space Environment and Space Situational Awareness Domain “, Rovetto, R.J. International Workshop on Ontology Modularity, Contextuality, and Evolution at the 9th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems.
-
(6) “An Ontology for Satellite Databases “, Robert J. Rovetto. Earth Science Informatics, April 2017. DOI:10.1007/s12145-017-0290-x, Download Paper
-
(7) “Space Object Ontology” Rovetto, R.J. draft (Forthcoming, under journal review since 2016) (NOTE: This, and (2) were plagiarized by work elsewhere. Please contact me before you cite/use another similar ontology)
-
(8) “Orbital Debris Ontology”, PPT presentation as panelest on the SSA panel at Center for Orbital Debris Education and Researh Workshop, University of Maryland, College Park.
-
(9) “Ontology for Europe’s Space Situational Awareness Programme”, 7th European Conference on Space Debris, Darmstadt, Germany. Download Paper. Download Poster
-
(10) “Orbital Space Environment and Space Situational Awareness Domain Ontology” In CEUR Workshop proceedings of The Joint Ontology Workshops at the 9th International Conference of Formal Ontology for Information Systems (FOIS), Early Career Symposium, Annecy, France July 2016. Download Paper, Download PPT Presentation
- (11) “Ontology” Live Webinar to the NASA Datanauts Spring 2017 class
-
(12) “Ontologies – Creating Human-centered Taxonomies to Annotate Data” in Data Discovery Magazine, Summer 2017 (p.15), ISSUU, SecondMuse. Article in Magazine Site, On NASA Site
-
(13) “Ontology-based Knowledge Management for Space Data”, 68th International Astronautical Congress. September, 2017. Download Paper
- (14) “Orbital Debris Ontology, Terminology, and Knowledge Modeling”, Rovetto, T.S. Kelso, and D.A. O’Neil. 1st International Orbital Debris Conference. December, 2019. Download Poster
Author
Robert J. Rovetto, (Ontologist, Philosopher), Google Scholar
- SEEKING OPPORTUNITIES: either studentships or entry-level employment or freelance
- Research Affiliate, Center for Orbital Debris Education and Research (CODER), University of Maryland (Unfunded affiliation)
- National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) Datanauts (Unfunded affiliation)
- American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA), Space Traffic Management Committee
- AIAA, SA Committee on Standards
- Education Committee member, International Association for Ontology and its Applications
- Emails: rrovetto[at]terpalum.umd.edu (Preferred. Forwards to: ontologos[at]yahoo.com); robert.rovetto[at]amu.apus.edu
- ORCID Profile, GitHub Homepage
- B.A. Philosophy, Minor Business & Management w/IT focus, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Maryland (2007)
- M.A. Philosophy (ontology focus), Dept. of Philosophy, The State University of New York at Buffalo (2011)
- Coursework in Space Studies MS program, American Military University (APUS) (varia 2009-2013)
- Maritime & Emergency Response - credentials, training and experience available on request.
History & Context
Orbitology has fascinated me since my teens. In 2011 I thought of applying ontology to help with the orbital debris problem (1), after a space conference presentation in Colorado mentioned the need for more debris data-integration and sharing. My idea was to (a) facilitate that, and to (b) ontologically represent orbital concepts and objects, while also exploring relevant philosophical questions. I’ve wanted this idea to afford me an opportunity to return to my original love of space–by applying what I had studied so that I could continue my space education, and find a space careerpath. Please help if you can.
- I want my ontologies to be used by others
- I want to help build ontologies for space orgs., academia or university projects, companies, etc.
- I want to work ideally in a team environment to learn from professionals in astrodynamics, informatics, systems engineering, computer science, AI, ontology, etc.
- I want to learn any necessary skills and knowledge, e.g., coding, astrodynamics, through a studensthip, on-the-job, or employer-funded opportunity.
- I have wanted to return to university for a PhD or other degree in order to complete this project This is part of my hopeful vision for a future degree on an astronautics topic, and a career in space.
- I need professionals who see my potential, and would like to help me realize this project, or afford the opportunity to work on a related project with them. Thusfar, no opportunity has been forthcoming, despite appealing to many similar projects appearing in universities and industry since my publications. I would like a stable environment with professionals and mentors to sustainably develop and implement my ideas. Please contact me if you would like to help.
About Ontology
Related topics & Keywords: metadata, artificial intelligence (AI), knowledge model, domain model, knowledge graph, semantic model, linked data, big data, open data, knowledge representation and reasoning, conceptual model.
Ontology is interdisciplinary, originating in philosophy, and typically yields a conceptual model or classificaiton.
Computational ontologies provide human- and computer-readable terminologies/taxonomies with a formally-specified semantics. Terms in the ontology tag data elements in databases, and are encoded in a language that allows computers to draw inferences (automated reasoning) and answer user-generated questions (database queries). Ontologies therefore provide metadata, a common vocabulary, and express a knowledge model for software applications to draw from and reason over. Ontology class terms (and their formal definitions) provide semantic annotation for database terms, which provides meaning to data that users can access. Ontologies can be developed to varying degrees of abstraction and formality, from the highly generic to the domain-specific, from a set of terms in OWL to a full axiomatic theory of a terminology or taxonomy/classification.
Ontology development & engineering is has application in AI, informatics, information & data science, linked data, big data, the semantic web, and database management. It is part of knowledge engineering, a branch of AI. Practical goals of ontologies include: knowledge representation & reasoning, semantic interoperability, data-exchange, information fusion, data-mining, chatbots, and search & retrieval, etc. The concepts, distinctions and methodologies from philosophical and formal ontology may be used in contemporary computation ontology. Formal ontology is a branch of analytical metaphysics that uses logics to represent an ontological model. f
License
Copyright © Robert J. Rovetto 2011-2020. Contact author with questions, and opportunity offers.