Increasing Mars 2020 Mission Efficiency via SAPP Operations Automation and AEGIS V&V

Abstract

Operating a rover on another planet is a difficult task. While rovers are becoming increasingly autonomous, human input is still required and valuable in the space operations process. However, human time and rover time are precious and efforts must be made to make missions as efficient as possible. This thesis addresses the need for mission efficiency by implementing operational improvements to the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover’s Surface Attitude Positioning and Pointing (SAPP) subsystem and by supporting the verification and validation (V&V) of the Automated Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) software system for autonomous science gathering. These two projects help human operators to assess the rover’s health and status more effectively and help free up time spent with a human in the loop for science operations, respectively.