System and method of providing N-tiered enterprise/web-based management, procedure coordination, and control of a geosynchronous satellite fleet

• US 20060094351A1
• Filed: 11/01/2004
• Published: 05/04/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SES AMERICOM, Inc. (SES SA)
• Original Assignee: SES AMERICOM, Inc. (SES SA)
• Inventors: Taylor, Christopher, Schramm, John Philip, Chauhan, Manoj K., Chilelli, Nicholas Vespasian, Ranganathan, Srinivasan, Massaro, Anthony William, Nowak, Thomas Gerard, Moscatiello, Kevin John
• Granted Patent: US 7,415,329 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/13.2
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/19 Earth-synchronous stations

Abstract

An N-Tiered enterprise and/or N-Tiered Web-based enterprise system and methods for managing, monitoring, coordinating the procedures of and optionally controlling a fleet of geosynchronous satellites through a distributed network such as the Internet. The system and associated object oriented software architecture seamlessly supports monitoring and analyzing real-time, near real-time, historical/playback, simulated and archived satellite telemetry as well as Tracking, Telemetry and Control (TT&C) ground system generated data products such as real-time alerts, archived alerts and ground system server statuses from a group of legacy distributed TT&C wide area network (WAN) ground station systems located around the world.

Claims

1. An N-tiered enterprise system for managing satellite fleet information and commands, comprising:

one or more terminals operating Tier 1 software layers;

one or more application servers operating Tier-2 software layers; and

a plurality of Tracking, Telemetry and Control (TT&

C) data resources operating Tier 3 software layers dedicated to storing and/or processing satellite-based data, wherein the Tier-2 application servers control Tier-1 terminal access to the satellite-based data stored and/or processed in Tier-3-Tier N real-time, simulated, playback and archived data resources.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the Tier-1 software layer is comprised of a client application applet and/or graphical user interface comprised of the following components:

a graphical user interface providing enterprise users with the plethora of specification options required to initiate application displays dedicated to the plurality of TT&

C data products;

a collection of multi-threaded and/or multi-processed application data pop-up viewing displays (Text or Graphical) supporting the plurality of application data product formats;

a collection of client/proxy communication software modules designed to generate application objects necessary for secure HTTP/HTTPS protocol translations;

An application software module dedicated to controlling application graphical user interface features and options as a function of User ID and User Password combinations.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the Tier-2 intermediate software layer is comprised of the following:

one or more internal or externally dynamically deployable Tier-2 HTTP/HTTPS servers (Open Source and/or Commercial);

an integrated suite of Open Source software products including but not limited to Apache/Tomcat, Mysql, JAVA SDK,JBOSS and ANT;

a plurality of Tier-2 archived and real-time data sources and associated data source strategies including but not limited to relational database storage (Open Source and/or Commercial);

shared memory data storage and flat file data storage;

a plurality of archived and real-time data source access interfaces and drivers designed to access Tier-2 and Tier-3 data storage resources;

a full compliment of servlet modules designed to support Tier-1 to Tier-2 HTTP/HTTPS protocol translation and Tier-2 to Tier-2 HTTP/HTTPS Server redirection;

a plurality of Tier-2 data processors designed to initialize update and provide access to Tier 2 shared memory segments; and

a plurality of synchronous and asynchronous application TCP/IP and RMI/RMI Activatable servers designed to support Tier-1 to Tier-2 and Tier-2 to Tier-3-Tier N interprocess communications.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the Tier-2 software architecture provides Tier-1 terminal based clients with continuous 24-hour controlled access to fleet satellite based data.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein Tier 1 through Tier N software architecture, associated software layer modules and software layer components are stored in memory on a plurality of Tier 1 through Tier N processing units, computers, servers and/or workstations comprising a distributed processing unit configuration dedicated to providing the myriad of functions required of a full featured enterprise TT&

C satellite fleet management ground system.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein distributed communication network connecting Tier 1 through Tier N distributed processing units, computers, servers and/or workstations includes an extranet dedicated to corporate affiliates and an intranet dedicated to internal corporate users;

the intranet comprising;

a wide area network interconnecting a aggregate of globally deployed TT&

C local area networks;

a wide area network interconnecting an aggregate of globally deployed corporate local area networks; and

a virtual private network dedicated to intranet connectivity from outside corporate network resources.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the Tier 3-Tier N data resources includes a plurality of legacy mission critical TT&

C real-time, simulated, playback, archived satellite data sources dedicated to all functions related to TT&

C satellite fleet maintenance.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein one or more deployed Tier-2 application servers configured with the associated Tier 2 software architecture layer of claim 3, provides the Tier-1 terminals configured with software architecture layer of claim 2, with secured access to the satellite-based data stored and/or processed by the Tier-3-Tier N data resources of claim 7.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein secure Tier 1 to Tier 2 communication channels are established based on, but not limited to, HTTP/HTTPS and RMI communication protocols used in conjunction with the Tier 1 and Tier 2 communication modules, said Tier 1 and Tier 2 communication modules are further enhanced to perform HTTP/HTTPS tunneling protocol translation.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the Tier 1 to Tier 2 secure communication channel of claim 9, wherein Tier 1 communication modules are comprised of an aggregate of client proxy object communication software components and Tier 2 communications modules are comprised of an aggregate of protocol agnostic servlet software components, wherein together these modules establish Tier 1 to Tier 2 communication links based on well known secure HTTP/HTTPS ports only thereby suppressing internal application IP addresses and port/services information from all Tier 1 clients.