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if you're a scientist on earth whose

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laboratory is orbiting the planet at

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more than 17 000 miles per hour you may

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think it's difficult to conduct

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experiments if you're not right there

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with the equipment

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while the space station was in the first

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in its planning stage a group of

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software developers at the marshall

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space flight center in huntsville

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alabama came up with a solution my

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colleague bill hubsher has more from

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that group of software developers here

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at the marshall space flight center

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created the telescience resource kit or

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trek to help scientists around the world

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work on their experiments while ever

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leaving home that same software could be

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used when humans start conducting

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science on mars to find out more we're

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joined by michelle schneider she is one

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of the software developers and the team

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lead for trek thanks for taking the time

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to join us this morning michelle first

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of all tell us a story about how trek

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was created sure so i work at the

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mission operations laboratory here at

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marshall space flight center and we

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actually have a very long history

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in supporting payload operations

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prior to supporting the international

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space station program we supported space

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lab missions and space lab was a

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research facility that fit into the

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cargo bay of the space shuttle

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and when scientists and engineers flew

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payloads or experiments on space lab

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they would travel here to huntsville

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alabama to

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operate their payload in the huntsville

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operations support center

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and of course baseline missions were a

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very short duration though they only

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lasted about seven to ten days maybe

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towards the end of the program they

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would go out to 20 25 days but still

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pretty short so people could travel here

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but when it came time to support the

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international space station program

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we realized that wasn't going to be a

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feasible approach because of course

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space station payloads can operate for

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years at a time so people really

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couldn't just uproot their lives and

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move to huntsville alabama for years so

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that's when we started working on the

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remote operations concept the idea that

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people could stay at home to monitor and

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control their payloads so

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there's a lot of very important software

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that runs here at the huntsville

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operations support center that makes

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remote operations possible

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and the trello science resource kit or

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trek software is one part of that

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overall solution and it's one of the

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products that we deploy out all over the

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world so payload teams can stay at home

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to operate their payloads so track is

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basically just a suite of software

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applications and libraries that provide

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capabilities

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to monitor and control an asset on the

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ground or on the spacecraft and this can

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be done from either their their

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laboratories or for that matter from

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their arm chairs absolutely laptops

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absolutely and they do it from both

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locations it makes it very convenient

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because now they don't have to travel

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anywhere they can stay in the comfort of

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home and and take care of all their

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operations work there what were some of

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the bigger challenges when it came to

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creating trek

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well one of them is that we originally

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started working on the trek in the 90s

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and while the internet is something

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that's part of our everyday lives today

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that was back in the beginning of the

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internet and so a lot of the technology

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available at that time was still very

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new and not anywhere near as powerful as

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it is today so one of the challenges was

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using software and hardware at that time

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to meet the needs of

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what we had to do to

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work in a space environment

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so you guys were kind of pioneers

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in and of yourself yeah something we

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take for granted how easy it is to make

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connections on the internet you were

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trying to do that 20 years ago we were

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and it's been great we've grown up with

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the internet right along with it

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so you've been helping scientists around

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the world as i said for years now but

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now you're going to become one you and

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your team actually have a technology

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demonstration on station right now tell

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us about that that's right we're super

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excited we now have our own payload on

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the international space station it's

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called the trek demonstration payload

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and it has a couple of purposes

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one thing is even though the trek

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software was originally developed to be

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used as ground software turns out that

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the same function you need to do on the

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ground

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you also need to do in-flight software

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with your payload onboard space station

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so now the truck software is a standard

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software service onboard the space

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station so with the truck demonstration

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payload we're able to demonstrate trek

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on both sides on the ground and on board

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and all the data flow that takes place

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in between and show all of its

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capabilities

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a second purpose so

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uh space station is now moved from the

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construction phase to the utilization

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phase so science is our primary focus so

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the program's been working very hard to

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roll out lots of new capabilities and

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services to make it even easier to fly

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and operate a payload

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so the truck demonstration payload is

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serving as the pathfinder payload for

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many of these new services so we're the

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very first payload on board to use these

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new services

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we're doing lots of performance testing

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to characterize how well the services

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work

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and we're sharing that information with

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payload teams so that when they're going

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through the list of all the services

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available trying to decide which ones

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they want to use for their operations

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they have a lot of information to make

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those choices now the beauty of your

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particular payload is that it was it was

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all electronic you pretty much had to

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upload it right right we just upload

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uploaded the software there was a laptop

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already on board we installed it and

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we're ready to go and it's that simple

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can you tell me a little bit about the

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the new services that you're helping

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test with the new the track

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demonstration software sure one of them

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is called delay tolerant networking and

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um that's a really important and new

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service

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you know even though we're using things

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that like standard network protocols

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that are used every day on terrestrial

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networks when you get into a space to

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ground environment it is a little bit

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different for example we don't have a

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hundred percent coverage that we can

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communicate with the space station at

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all times sometimes there are data

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dropouts where we just can't communicate

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well delay tolerant networking provides

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ways to basically

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store and hold data until it gets

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communication again and then it can go

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ahead and forward it and all of that

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happens automatically so what's cool is

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it gives payload teams the ability to

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automate their operations so

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they don't have to be there all the time

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monitoring they can have software

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automatically doing that for them oh

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fantastic what about storage up there on

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the station yes there's a new capability

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called network address storage or nas as

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we call it

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you can kind of think of it as like a

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giant hard drive in a way

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it's providing lots and lots of

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additional storage for payload teams so

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that as they generate data as part of

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their experiments that's an extra place

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where they can store it

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it comes with something called a dropbox

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where you can have a folder on your

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local computer on the ground and you

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just drop files in it and they just

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automatically get uplinked and it works

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the same way going down so that's a

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really cool feature that also helps

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support automation oh fantastic what do

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you see is the future for trek

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well every day there's tons of new

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technology coming out and we're really

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looking forward to continue to enhance

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the product and to infuse as much of

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that new technology to make it easier

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and easier to fly payloads on station

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michelle schneider one of the pioneers

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for software development here at the

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marshall space flight center and the

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team lead for trek thanks so much for

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taking the time to talk to us today oh

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thank you for having me if you'd like to

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learn more about trek they actually have