Integrating Provenance-Awareness into the Space Debris Processing System BACARDI

Abstract

Assessments about the quality, reliability, and trust-worthiness of data used and generated in mission critical soft-ware systems are important. The Backbone Catalogue for Relational Debris information (BACARDI) provides a database related to orbit information about active and inactive objects in Earth orbit. It exports data products which are used in mission planning and to provide collision warnings. The criticality of these products highlights the importance of identifying invalid data. Additionally, legal frameworks necessitate clear attribution of data to its original contributors. We present a provenance model defined using the W3C PROV data model and describe how it is integrated into the BACARDI system, making the software provenance-aware. Our provenance model, which is tailored to specific use cases, allows for efficient graph database queries. It is designed to be reusable and compatible with other PROV models. We applied the provenance model to a highly scalable provenance recording architecture blueprint. While the presented provenance model is reusable and integrates with other PROV models, the architecture blueprint makes other applications provenance-aware and enables users to assess data quality and reliability.