An Ontology for Satellite Databases

TL;DR

This paper develops a formal ontology for satellite databases, enabling better data sharing, integration, and domain understanding in space situational awareness.

Contribution

It introduces the UCS Satellite Ontology (UCSSO) and demonstrates how it can reuse or replace existing space domain ontologies like SSAO.

Findings

UCSSO facilitates semantic data integration for satellite databases.

The ontology can reuse, extend, or replace SSAO in different applications.

The ontology resources are publicly available online and on GitHub.

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 and 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 http://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.