An Ontology Architecture for Europe’s Space Situational Awareness Program Author status: Seeking opportunities (degree, employment, or training/apprenticeship) Author affiliations: NASA 2017 Datanaut (www.nasa.gov/opennasa/danatus/spring2017/); and Research Affiliate, Center for Orbital Debris Education & Research (http://www.coder.umd.edu/) Alternate emails:
[email protected];
[email protected]
By Robert J. Rovetto
[email protected] Presented at 7th European Conference on Space Debris , Darmstadt, Germany, 18-21 April 2017
SYNOPSIS
LIMITATIONS OF CURRENT STATE OF ORBITAL DATA
The European Space Agency’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Program gathers volumes of data on artificial satellites, orbital debris, near-Earth objects, and space weather. Toward improving the management, structuring and integration of that data, I propose ontology and knowledge engineering. This paper offers an ontology architecture concept for the ESA SSA program. Each ESA SSA segment will have its own ontology that is formally related to the others. In tandem, they form a holistic, formal domain representation. The ontologies will formally represent SSA concepts and domain objects, annotate data, and facilitate data sharing and integration among databases. Given the common knowledge within the SSA domain, I propose and offer the ESA adopt The SSA Ontology (SSAO) [2] and related orbital space environment ontology work [1,3,4], an existing domain reference ontology for orbital space and SSA. The SSAO can form part of an ESA SSA ontological architecture, providing classifications of space objects, and a formally defined vocabulary for critical SSA entities. It offers a unified sharable knowledge model. Goal: to develop & work on space ontologies for the ESA, NASA, and to continue space studies.
ESA SSA Program
• Low accuracy of publicly-accessible orbital information; Varying data quality • No unified international mechanism for catalogues and identifying space objects. • Multiple databases. Potentially conflicting information. Distinct data sources are not integrated. Source: 2016 UN COPUOS working paper A/AC.105/L.303, 59th session. As a partial solution, I propose ontology applications [4][1].
ONTOLOGY ENGINEERING A Computational Ontology = a computable structured terminology with a formal semantics. • Ontologies can be designed for specific applications, or application-neutral • They can express general knowledge or conceptualizations of a domain, which can be shared across systems : a sharable knowledge model for databases of a common domain/subject • Are implemented using knowledge representation languages, which are often logic-based • Reduce programming complexity by providing a high-level domain model. A backbone formally-defined vocabulary of category, attribute and relationship terms annotates data elements from federated databases . This serves as a common link between databases • Are used for automated reasoning, decision support, knowledge discovery, knowledge representation, data-mining, data-sharing, semantic interoperability. • Has been used in software engineering, AI, informatics, GIS, astronomy,
An Ontology Architecture for ESA SSA …
ESA Near-Earth Object Search Webpage – results for Asteroid 2015NK13
… that can incorporate the SSA Domain Ontology [2] The Space Situational Awareness Ontology (SSAO) https://purl.org/space-ontology/ssao
Is a domain reference ontology for SSA [2], in progress and open to collaborative development Red boxes added to mark categories, values, and individual object. Objects, physical and geometric properties, and other relevant domain entities expressed in SSA databases are to be formally represented in an ESA SSA Ontology.
• Formalizes domain concepts & knowledge • Provides a common high-level domain vocabulary To classify & characterize space objects ontologically • Seeking funded opportunity to develop • Contact author for ontology file Future location: https://purl.org/space-ontology/ssao
Terms already found in the SSAO
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Application-neutral Editable, Scalable, Reusable Human & Machine Readable Open world assumption Currently in OWL format
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Part of Orbital Space Ontology effort (https://purl.org/space-ontology) (on Github) Compatible with IVOA Astronomy ontologies, NASA SWEET ontologies
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Example User: ‘Ontology-driven Orrery’, Dan A. O’Neil, NASA Marshal Space Flight Center (on Github)
Related works by the Author Project Landing Page https://purl.org/space-ontology https://github.com/rrovetto Ontology files available (email me
[email protected]) SEEKING funded opportunities, and partners/team-members to develop this project, e.g., educational (studentship, internship), employment, co-authors, grants, proposal-development, contract work, etc.
Selected Communities of Interest: SSA, astroinformatics, artificial intelligence, knowledge engineering, formal ontology, data modeling, big data, data science, data fusion, semantic web, taxonomy & classification development, aerospace computing. Prior ESA ontology efforts: ULISSE, OBEOS, etc.
[1] An Ontological Architecture for Orbital Debris Data. Rovetto, R.J. (2015) Earth Science Informatics. [2] Preliminaries of a Space Situational Awareness Ontology. Rovetto, R.J., & Kelso, T.S. (2016) AIAA/AAS 26th Space Flight Mechanics Meeting. [3] Ontology Architectures for the Orbital Space Environment and Space Situational Awareness Domain, Rovetto, R.J. (2016) [4] The Orbital Space Environment & Space Situational Awareness Domain Ontology – Toward an International Information System For Space Data, AMOS (2016) [5] An Ontology for Satellite Databases, Earth Science Informatics (2017) www.purl.org/space-ontology/ucsso
