FAQ

Q: Who are the intended users of SPACESIM? The intended users of SPACESIM include everyone interested in significantly improving spaceport operations. From a business perspective, this includes spaceport operators, launch vehicle developers, flight hardware element developers, and all companies that provide logistics support services to spaceports. These companies will achieve high return on investment and will operate more efficiently by using SPACESIM to improve spaceport processes. From a government/economic development perspective, this includes organizations interested in developing, enhancing, or maintaining spaceport infrastructure to compete in the growing space transportation industry and to bring jobs and revenues to their respective regions. From an educational perspective, this includes higher learning institutions that want to educate students on space transportation issues. Q: How long does it take to train new SPACESIM users? Typically users can be trained to become proficient with SPACESIM in less than one full day. SPACESIM provides a graphical user interface that has been designed to facilitate "what-if" scenario creation and many ease-of-use features such as tooltips, navigational aids, and shortcuts have been included to help users that are not familiar with the software. In addition, the user interface has been developed with a consistent look and feel throughout.   Q: Why should I trust SPACESIM to produce valid results? SPACESIM was developed under a contract with NASA Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral spaceport. Nevins Software, Inc. worked very closely with NASA spaceport engineers throughout the software development process to guarantee that the software produced is of the highest quality. In addition, NASA spaceport engineers performed exhaustive verification and validation efforts with more than 15 years of Shuttle data to ensure that SPACESIM meets NASA's stringent requirements. SPACESIM is currently being used by NASA to improve spaceport operations for current and next generation launch vehicles. Q: What outputs are produced by SPACESIM? SPACESIM provides the following outputs to users: Graphs 1) Closure Profile Graphs for all Flight Hardware Elements These graphs illustrate the times that all flight hardware elements reach specific milestones while being processed at the spaceport. Bottlenecks are readily identified by these graphs. 2) Spaceport Resource Utilization Graphs These graphs illustrate utilization of each spaceport resource over time in order to give users a picture of resources that are constrained or that are being under-utilized. These graphs help users identify expensive capital equipment that may be unnecessary, or identify when a capital purchase is justified to improve throughput. 3) Launch Vehicle Throughput Graphs These graphs illustrate how many launch vehicles launched over time, broken down into categories of expendable and reusable. They portray the overall spaceport throughput capability given the user's custom defined scenario. Reports 1) Spaceport Resource Statistics Report This report provides a detailed view of all spaceport resources, including number of items processed, minimum/average/maximum number of items queued waiting for processing, minimum/average/maximum amount of time that items needed to wait, etc. 2) Flight Hardware Element Report This report lists all launch vehicles processed over time at the spaceport, including detailed milestones for all flight hardware elements that make up a particular launch vehicle. Q: Does SPACESIM allow for variability in process times? Yes. SPACESIM allows users to set up scenarios that have constant or variable process times with time units that can be easily defined by the user on a per process basis for maximum flexibility. So, if a specific process is known to have a mean time of 18 hours with a variance plus or minus 5 hours, this can easily be entered in SPACESIM. The simulation engine will take care of the rest to illustrate to the user how this randomness affects overall operations. Q: Can I integrate data from SPACESIM easily with my existing software tools? Yes. Data interoperability is a definite strength of SPACESIM and has been developed from day one with this in mind. SPACESIM stores all scenario input and scenario output data in XML, an open-standards based format that allows for easy data interchange between software tools. In addition, graphs, reports, and charts output from SPACESIM can be easily incorporated into PDF, Word, and PowerPoint.

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