Gregory Renard

Roelien C. Timmer, Fech Scen Khoo, Megan Mark et al.

The size of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is growing exponentially, allowing researchers to make discoveries. However, making discoveries is challenging and time-consuming due to the size of the data catalogs, and as many concepts and data are indirectly connected. This paper proposes a pipeline to generate knowledge graphs (KGs) representing different NASA SMD domains. These KGs can be used as the basis for dataset search engines, saving researchers time and supporting them in finding new connections. We collected textual data and used several modern natural language processing (NLP) methods to create the nodes and the edges of the KGs. We explore the cross-domain connections, discuss our challenges, and provide future directions to inspire researchers working on similar challenges.

Alexander Lavin, Gregory Renard

The development and deployment of machine learning systems can be executed easily with modern tools, but the process is typically rushed and means-to-an-end. The lack of diligence can lead to technical debt, scope creep and misaligned objectives, model misuse and failures, and expensive consequences. Engineering systems, on the other hand, follow well-defined processes and testing standards to streamline development for high-quality, reliable results. The extreme is spacecraft systems, where mission critical measures and robustness are ingrained in the development process. Drawing on experience in both spacecraft engineering and AI/ML (from research through product), we propose a proven systems engineering approach for machine learning development and deployment. Our Technology Readiness Levels for ML (TRL4ML) framework defines a principled process to ensure robust systems while being streamlined for ML research and product, including key distinctions from traditional software engineering. Even more, TRL4ML defines a common language for people across the organization to work collaboratively on ML technologies.