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Introduction

Businesses and Nations alike are expanding into the final frontier. With so many different objects, someone needed to create a system that could track objects that are circling the earth to deconflict orbital paths and ensure safety for everyone on our planet. A system was developed decades ago without the foresight that we would be expanding into space extremely rapidly. In 2023, Tesla and Amazon both launched thousands of satellites.

When any object is launched into space, it is assigned a specific designator. This is placed in a database that houses essential information about the object. In the late 2010s, a Russian satellite collided with an American satellite. This causes thousands of new entries into the database to track the debris from the crash. Since then, there have been only a few significant events that caused the database entries to spike dramatically.

Business Problem

Due to legacy systems and a very complicated architecture, the software used for tracking objects in space needed to be expanded to accommodate additional entries.

Solution

Release software update to global satellite tracking systems increasing the number of entries able to be entered without altering current entries. When systems fall out of orbit, or are otherwise destroyed, it's imperative these entries remain within the catalogue for documentation purposes.

Project Timeline

I started my time with Jacobs working on an adjacent project that dealt with orbital sensors placed on satellites. Developing software for highly sensitive systems requires perfect accuracy with absolutely no room for error. This required rigorous test cases, stress testing, and a rolling deployment cycle that prototyped the new system with operators having the option to fail over to the old system in case a real life situation was occurring. Unfortunately, because of the secure nature of the project, I cannot go into vast detail on the lifecycle but I will highlight key areas in the project.

Q2 2022 - Code Development & Outside Contractor Support from Deloitte

Jacobs worked with Deloitte over 2021-2022 to update existing infrastructure within the testing facility used to sandbox the code. The legacy system essentially uses an emulator to run the codebase because of how outdated it is. Deloitte was contracted to find creative ways to speed this up and process objects faster. As you can imagine with satellites orbiting hundreds of miles per hour, speed is very important in identifying trajectory paths. I served as a liaison officer in this project and eventually would assume this responsibility when Deloitte finished their contract requirements. This was absorbed into Jacobs as part of it's sustainment portfolio that required ongoing maintenance.

One of my teams acted as the administrators for the code branch containing roughly 1 million lines of code for the software being updated. Another team acted in a DevOps role to release the update.

A large portion of this project involved documentation of changes, cybersecurity mitigations, and overall risk acceptance from all parties detailing responsibility of systems. In each of the five teams working on this software update there were cyber security ISSOs and Technical Writers that worked on these extremely valuable documents. After many rounds of revisions, these documents were passed in Q4 2022 and allowed us to send our prototype to the user for initial feedback.

Q4 2022 - Initial MVP Sent to Global Operational Sites

After finalizing a prototype, we sent the update to Operational sites and received user feedback. Unfortunately, I cannot discuss specifics about this section of the project.

Q1 2023 - Test Case Remediation / Adjust Features Based on Operator Feedback

After releasing a small demonstration to Space Force Operators in California, there was an issue that needed to be corrected in the code. Other information is not able to be discussed.

Q1 2024 - Product Rollout and Final Acceptance from Government

Shortly after Christmas, Jacobs received operational acceptance for the Software from the United States Space Force.

My Contributions

I served as the software release manager for this project in addition to other software programs that are still in the process of being finalized. This update marked the first time in several decades that this codebase had been updated. After completing this project the teams working at Jacobs received recognition from the United States Space Force Command located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This critical update allows operators at global sites to successfully track a larger number of objects in the final frontier.

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