[MOIMS-TEL] Status of Telerobotics Working Group meeting at the CCSDS Spring 2016 Technical Meeting

[David Mittman]

TL;DR: There will be no Telerobotics Working Group session at the CCSDS Spring 2016 Technical Meeting

The work of the Telerobotics WG deserves to be completed by someone with a significant involvement in the field, which no longer describes my position. My NASA Telerobotics tasks which have supported my engagement with CCSDS have diminished significantly over the past two years, as has the portion of my time that I can commit to the effort, having significant organizational management responsibilities now. My hope would be that an alternative WG Chair would emerge from NASA with a co-Chair from ESA or DLR. Currently, we lack even a Deputy Chair for the WG. No activity has taken place since the Fall meeting, and I believe cancelling the TEL WG session at the upcoming Spring meeting is the right course of action.

At the Fall meeting, increased participation from DLR was good to see, but with it came a request to revisit some of the contents of the Green Book, which was pending submission to the CMC for review based on the previous effort of the working group; I have no time for such an effort now. We can either send the existing Green Book to review under my chairmanship now — perhaps with an addendum indicating that a revision is planned — or withdraw the existing Green Book and allow a newly constituted working group to complete any additions needed, and submit the revised Green Book for review.

At this point, I believe I need to make a general announcement to the Working Group indicating the cancellation of the Spring session as well as the need for new group leadership. I can remain Chair until a replacement can be found, but I'm unable to commit to continuing active work in the WG.

The charter of the WG remains generally valid, as does our general approach to defining standards based on near-term need to collaborate between Agencies on the development of collaborative telerobotic operation standards in support of our grander space exploration architectures.

David Mittman, Chair
CCSDS MOIMS-TEL, Telerobotics Working Group
david.s.mittman at jpl.nasa.gov
Office: +1 (818) 393-8232