NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) operates spacecraft communication links for NASA deep-space spacecraft missions, including the Curiosity Rover, the Voyager twin spacecraft, Galileo, New Horizons, etc., and has done so reliably for over fifty years. The DSN Complex Event Processing (DCEP) software assembly is a new software system being deployed worldwide into NASA's DSN Deep Space Communication Complexes (DSCC's), including facilities in Spain, Australia, and the United States. The system brings into the DSN next-generation "Big Data" and "Fast Data" infrastructural tools, including Apache Kafka, for correlating real-time network data with other critical data assets, including predicted antenna pointing parameters and extensive logging of physical hardware in the DSN. The ultimate use case is to ingest, filter, store, and visualize all of the DSN's monitor and control data and to actively ensure the successful DSN tracking, ranging, and communication integrity of dozens of concurrent deep-space missions. The system is also intended to support future autonomy applications, including automated anomaly detection in real-time network monitor streams and automated reconfiguration of antenna related assets as needed by future, increasingly autonomous spacecraft. This talk will focus upon the software system behind DCEP, and introduce novel approaches to increasing NASA spacecraft link-control operator cognizance into anomalies that may and do occur during spacecraft tracking activities. This talk will also offer lessons learned, and provide a glimpse into one of the most unique, "out-of-this-world", applications of Apache Kafka.
