Interoperability Plenary

 

Interagency interoperability for cross-support is needed to realize the additional economies resulting from an ability to share the large capital investments made by each agency in mission support systems. For that purpose, the Inter-Operability Plenary (IOP) Meeting was convened in 1999.

The meeting held June 21-22, 1999, comprising multi-agency Senior Managers, convened as a result of an European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA Interagency, Tracking, Communications, and Operations Panel (ITCOP) Meeting in December 1998, where ESA suggested that ESA-NASA interoperability issues might be better dealt with in a multi-agency forum. Six agencies met to agree upon a framework to achieve interoperability.

At the first meeting, the IOP established an Interagency Operations Advisory Group (IOAG) in order to achieve cross-support across the international space community and to expand the enabling levels of space communications and navigation interoperability.

This second IOP was convened in December 2008 to allow major organizations currently planning space missions to review the first decade of progress in cross-support and interoperability of space communications and navigation across multiple agencies and to establish future directions as necessary to expand cross-support and interoperability into space.

The third IOP was hosted by le Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in June 2013 in Toulouse, France to receive the report of the SISG and endorse their architectural proposal, as well as to deliberate on new activities undertaken by the IOAG since IOP-2. A consensus emerged that expanding the current levels of international coordination and interoperability offers strong potential for enabling new missions, reducing costs, and increasing mission safety.

For further information, please visit: interoperabilityplenary.org