Abstract
This paper demonstrates the development of ontology for satellite databases. First, I create a computational ontology for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Satellite Database (UCSSD for short), called the UCS Satellite Ontology (or UCSSO). Second, in developing UCSSO I show that The Space Situational Awareness Ontology (SSAO) (Rovetto & Kelso 2016)-—an existing space domain reference ontology—-and related ontology work by the author (Rovetto 2015, 2016) can be used either (i) with a database-specific local ontology such as UCSSO, or (ii) in its stead. In case (i), local ontologies such as UCSSO can reuse SSAO terms, perform term mappings, or extend it. In case (ii), the author’s orbital space ontology work, such as the SSAO, is usable by the UCSSD and organizations with other space object catalogs, as a reference ontology suite providing a common semantically-rich domain model. The SSAO, UCSSO, and the broader Orbital Space Environment Domain Ontology project is online at https://purl.org/space-ontology and GitHub. This ontology effort aims, in part, to provide accurate formal representations of the domain for various applications. Ontology engineering has the potential to facilitate the sharing and integration of satellite data from federated databases and sensors for safer spaceflight.
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Notes
https://purl.org/space-ontology/ssao
Future location of ontology OWL file: https://purl.org/space-ontology/ssao.owl
Relational terms are called Object Properties or Data Properties in the Protégé ontology editor, the latter of which takes some alpha-numerical value as one relatum or argument. Non-relational categories are called classes.
As such, drift orbits and orbits at Lagrange points are not included. These are orbits that should be (and are) represented in a more complete domain ontology (e.g., the SSAO (Rovetto and Kelso 2016)).
Likewise for their orbits: as an alternative to relating the satellite to the parameters, one can relate them to orbits.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the reviews from the journal reviewers. Thanks also go to Mathias Brochhausen of the University of Arkansas, and Alan Ruttenberg of the State University of New York at Buffalo for their helpful input and their time in answering my questions. Thanks to Alan for specific modeling suggestion mentioned in the 'Orbit taxonomy and orbital properties’ subsection.
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Responsible editor: H. A. Babaie
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Rovetto, R.J. An ontology for satellite databases. Earth Sci Inform 10, 417–427 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-017-0290-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-017-0290-x