Purpose

In mid-2003, the manner in which SPIKE Constraint sets are managed was changed. This document provides an overview of the new architecture and provides tips on managing the constraint sets.

Overview

In order to generate suitabilities, SPIKE requires information about various spacecraft, instrument, and communications constraints (located in /data/operational1/constraint-sets/ ) which are primarily stored in the constraint set file loaded when SPIKE loads a "control" file (located in /data/operational1/control/ ). When a proposal is loaded into SPIKE, it checks to see if new cv-descs, orient-tables, and events files need to be generated or regenerated (stored in a suitable subdirectory in /data/operational1/description-files/ ).

Identifying Constraints Sets and Control Files

The constraint set used is identified in the control-file by the parameter ":constraint-scenario". The value in the field identifies a record which must exist in the constraint_scenarios assist table with the value in the field "scenario_name" corresponding to the :constraint-scenario value in the file. If the record does not exist, there will be an SPIKE error. If ":constraint-scenario is set to ":default", then the record in the constraint_scenario table identified by the field "default" set to "Y" is chosen.

Management of the constraint_scenario assist table

The tool scenario-manager is used to manage insertion, deletion, and change of default record in the constraint_scenarios table. The database table cross-references constrain_set names (names of the *.lisp file in /data/operational1/constraint-sets/ , names of the subdirectory tree in /data/operational1/description-files/ ) with scenario_name s ( value in the field :constraint-scenario in the control files).

Running the tool standalone with no parameters shows the syntax of how to run the tool as well as all of the records in the table.

Management Tips for Constraint sets

• Do not delete files in the /data/operational1/constraint-sets/ unless notifying the file owner.
• If entire subdirectory trees are removed from /data/operational1/description-files/ permanently, the corresponding table entry should also be removed.

Creating a New Constraint Set

1. Decide on names for the scenario_name (name of directory tree in description-files ) and constraint_set (filename in the constraint-set directory)
2. Copy a relevant old constraint set file to the new constraint_set name in /data/operational1/constraint-sets/
3. Edit the new constraint set file and change the relevant parameters.
4. Create a new database record which points to this file:
   unixprompt> scenario-manager action=i name=dummy_record_name set=my_constraint_set_file_name descript="Put something here to describe the changes"

5. You're done. You can now load the relevant control file in SPIKE and it will create the relevant directory tree, cv-descs, orient-tables, events files, etc. when you start to load a proposal.

Deleting a Constraint Set

1. Delete the corresponding constraint set record from the database.
   unixprompt> scenario-manager action=d name=dummy_record_name set=my_constraint_set_file_name

2. Remove the corresponding subdirectory tree from /data/operational1/description-files/.