Carnegie Mellon University
2024
MoonRanger: Designing Mission Control Telemetry for a NASA Lunar Rover
Transforming chaotic raw terminal data into an intuitive, high-reliability interface for NASA and Carnegie Mellon University’s 2029 lunar mission.
Overview
Mission Control Software (MCS) UX updates for error-free troubleshooting
Partnered with Carnegie Mellon University on NASA’s MoonRanger mission to circumnavigate the Moon’s north pole. Because future mission operators won’t be the engineers who built the rover, the system required an intuitive interface to monitor live telemetry, track instrument status, and execute rapid troubleshooting under extreme operational constraints
Test rover at CMU's Space Robotics Lab
Problem
Drowning in Raw Terminal Chaos
Operators were forced to monitor telemetry through a raw terminal window streaming hundreds of data lines per second for multiple instruments simultaneously in a jumbled list. In a high-stakes mission control environment, there was no clear visual cue to alert operators when an instrument malfunctioned or went offline.
Terminal window with incoming telemetry logs
Designs
High-Reliability Telemetry & Instant Instrument Drill-Downs
Re-architected the telemetry view to visually distinguish every onboard instrument, providing clear, real-time indicators for active, inactive, and error states. Built a seamless drill-down capability allowing operators to inspect detailed rover logs instantly, all integrated smoothly into the existing mission control design system.
Each Instrument and it's status is clearly visible to the Operator
The operator can select any instrument and filter each log sent by the rover for targeted troubleshooting
Impact
Fast Troubleshooting for High-Stakes Lunar Decisions
Replaced cognitive overload with clear, actionable status visualization - empowering mission control operators to troubleshoot faults instantly and make critical, time-sensitive decisions regarding the rover's trajectory and mission pivots.
Dr. Heather Jones, Senior Project Scientist for MoonRanger, tests the Telemetry Dashboard in the Mission Control Room at CMU
Opportunity to showcase the Mission Control Software to Google CEO Sundar Pichai
Want to know the messy part? (How we handled real-time telemetry latency constraints, and translated raw engineering data into a clean operational UI?) Let's chat!
hiremath.rishikesh@gmail.com
