The first successful launch supporting NASA's
Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program on January 8, 2024, was made possible in part by contributions from the
Human-Computer Interaction Group at
NASA Ames Research Center, who developed and are now operating a next-generation, cloud-based timeline capability called
Playbook. The CLPS project scientists are responsible for mission payloads and are actively using Playbook to collaboratively plan and optimize resource usage for their experiments. Playbook is a mobile software platform built to support the next generation of planning, scheduling, and execution tools for space exploration. Timeline scheduling includes the ability to model activities, resources, and constraints, in addition to providing support for violation checking and resolution. Execution capabilities include procedure integration, tracking status of activities, and multimedia communication.
This collaboration between
Johnson Space Center and Ames Research Center is helping to shape the transition to NASA’s work with commercial launch providers, while also establishing best practices for robotic payload planning for the Artemis program and beyond. While today’s “Mission 1” delivers Peregrine One and
five NASA payloads, future missions such as Mission 2, planned for February 2024, will also be using Playbook to manage new experiments for payloads developed by future commercial providers.
