Overview

Astronauts and ground support personnel require extensive training for spaceflight missions. The International Space Station (ISS), with its 24/7 operation, also requires three full shifts of flight controllers, along with their backups and technical support staff. These training requirements will only increase as the Space Shuttle is retired, the new Crew Exploration Vehicle begins flying, and eventually lunar surface operations begin. Today's infrastructure--while functional--is fragmented, incompletely integrated, and fails to take advantage of the powerful capabilities of modern, web-based applications and software design.

Ames database experts and software developers in the Advanced Spaceflight Training Systems Development group have now taken over management, maintenance, and development of NASA's spaceflight training management system (TMS). The Ames team plans to fully integrate the separate modules of the existing Training Administration Management System (TAMS) and Flight Operations Curriculum Administration Systems (FOCAS), and migrate all systems and interfaces into a web-based environment called the Scheduling, Training Administration, and Record (STAR) system. This redesign and reimplementation will eliminate current cross-platform limitations and workarounds; allow for the replacement of older, obsolete hardware; and fully integrate all scheduling, reporting, and curriculum maintenance functions of the system. STAR will help bring about cost savings through increased efficiency in managing training schedules and activities, while enabling the Agency to maintain the highest standards for training and qualifying its spaceflight crews and ground controllers.

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Project List (Active)

FOCAS - Flight Operations Curriculum Administration System
FOCAS has been developed incrementally as a replacement for TAMS. Its modules focus on ISS training and scheduling components not covered in the older Shuttle-based TAMS system. FOCAS has a user community of approximately 1300 planners and schedulers, instructors, students, managers, and administrators. Limited development is planned, with upgrades focused on leveraging existing components in various modules to be transitioned to the future TMS.

STAR - Scheduling, Training Administration, and Record System
STAR is NASA's next-generation training management system for crew, instructors, and flight controllers. It will replace both TAMS and FOCAS with a suite of tools that provide integrated curriculum development and documentation, customized training plans, scheduling of personnel and facilities, training event feedback, and other training resources. All modules are being designed for maximum efficiency and interoperability. In an iterative process, event feedback will be used to help optimize the training plans.
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TAMS - Training Administration Management System
TAMS is currently NASA's primary means for scheduling crews and crew training, tracking flight controller objectives, and maintaining training records and evaluations. TAMS applications run on the Web, Client/Server, and UNIX platforms with an Oracle database and serve a diverse user community of approximately 800 planners and schedulers, instructors, students, managers, and administrators. This system was designed around Space Shuttle operations. It is approximately 25 years old and has significant inherent inefficiencies built into it. The ASTS group will continue to operate and maintain TAMS through the life of the Shuttle Program, or until a replacement becomes operational. No new development is planned.