Spike Planning and Scheduling System

For information on Spike as an interactive Decision Support System, the paper "Spike: A Dynamic Interactive Component In a Human−Computer Long−range Planning System" by Leslie Zimmerman Foor and Drew J. Asson provides a human-centric analysis of STScI's use of Spike in HST Long-Range Planning. (presented at 3rd International NASA Workshop on Planning and Scheduling for Space)

For astronomers, the paper "Portable Astronomical Scheduling Tools" by Glenn Miller and Ashim Bose gives a quick introduction. (in Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems V, ASP Conference Series, Vol. 101, 1996, Editors: G. Jacoby and J. Barnes, pp. 467-470.)

Technical details about Spike, including the mathematical foundation of suitability functions, is given in the paper "SPIKE: Intelligent Scheduling of Hubble Space Telescope Observations", by Mark Johnston and Glenn Miller. (in Intelligent Scheduling, ed. M. Fox and M. Zweben, San Francisco: Morgan-Kaufmann, ISBN 1-55860-260-7, 1994, pp 391-422.)

The Plan Window scheduler is described in the paper "Achieving Stable Observing Schedules in an Unstable World", by Mark Giuliano. (in Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems VII, ASP Conference Series, Vol. 145, 1998, Editors: R. Albrecht, R.N. Hook and H. A. Bushouse, pp. 271-274.)

The paper "Nightly Scheduling of ESO's Very Large Telescope" describes how Spike is being used for short term scheduling at the VLT. (A.-M. Chavan, G. Giannone, D. Silva, T. Krueger, and G. Miller, in Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems VII, ASP Conference Series, Vol. 145, 1998, Editors: R. Albrecht, R.N. Hook and H. A. Bushouse, pp. 255-258.)

This document Spike Ground Based Interface Document describes the application interface to the Spike Ground Based scheduling system. This document will give you a feel for the capabilities of Ground Based Spike. (T. Krueger, L Kramer).