The Domino architecture is a modular, secured and evolutive architecture for federated EO system built upon a foundation of well-established functions split and standardized interfaces, ensuring that all components within the ground system can communicate and work together seamlessly. Sharing standards between industry, governmental bodies and research institutes eliminates the need to reinvent the wheel, allowing stakeholders to leverage existing expertise while focusing on developing cutting-edge solutions.
The Domino architecture is reusing as much as possible standards such as those established by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) and European Space Agency (ESA). Together, these standards provide the basics for data exchange and are expanded by additional agreed interfaces, ensuring that information from various EO sources can be integrated into a cohesive system. For example, the OGC Application Programming Interface (API) standard enables the execution of computing processes, the retrieval of metadata describing their purpose and functionality and the retrieval of the results of the process execution. The ESA PRIP standard is used to discover and download data from the different processing dominoes.
The Domino-E project plays a pivotal role in enhancing the Domino architecture by contributing three key components: the Federation Domino (Coverage Service), the Mission Booking Service (Satellite Communication and Resource Management Domino), and the Virtual Assistant Service (User Access Domino). Each of these components addresses specific challenges in EO, leveraging the technical interfaces and standards:
1) The Federation Domino’s role is designed to manage and optimize Earth Observation coverage requests for an EO picture of a large area across several federated EO missions. Its primary function is to efficiently distribute coverage requests among all EO systems available to expedite their completion. The Federation Service interacts with the User Access Service (UAS) and the Mission Planning Service (MPS) of each federated mission. It provides several key functionalities. Firstly, it distributes coverage requests to multiple EO missions to maximize efficiency and minimize processing time. Secondly, it evaluates and adjusts the distribution of requests as needed to optimize resource utilization. Lastly, it monitors the progress of each request and provides real-time updates to the end-user. By adhering to established standards and protocols, the Federation Domino ensures seamless integration with other components within the Domino architecture.
2) Effective management of satellite communication and resources is essential for the success of EO missions. The Mission Booking Service addresses this need by providing a standardized interface for scheduling and managing satellite resources. Using state-of-the-art algorithms, this service connects without conflicts multiple satellite constellations with various GSaaS (Ground Station as a Service) networks. Thanks to on-demand booking services offered by GSaaS, the booking service is able to address dynamic needs of each mission and to provide optimized contact solutions based on criteria such as cost, capacity and reactivity. The booking service relies on CCSDS protocols compliant with GSaaS to ensure standardized and reliable communication between satellites and ground stations. By adhering to these protocols, the Mission Booking Service ensures that the resources are used efficiently, and the data acquisition process is optimized for speed and accuracy.
3) The User Access Domino enhances the user experience by providing a virtual assistant service that interacts with EO data on behalf of the user. This service employs cognitive technologies to understand user queries and retrieve the most relevant data. The interface for this service is built upon established user interaction standards, ensuring that it is intuitive and easy to use. By simplifying the access to complex EO data, the User Access Domino makes it easier for end-users, including non-experts, to leverage the full potential of the EO data available through the Domino architecture.
