Spacecraft mission operations - lessons learned from automation

Automation could be used as a cost reduction or system improvement tool but all efforts must be made to ensure the health and safety of the spacecraft and the mission as a whole. Automation has saved the automotive industry millions of dollars and it can do the same to the spacecraft industry in this era of budget cuts. Manual ways of doing things should not be completely discarded. If possible, the various missions should try to develop a system, that would enable some of the controllers or operators to perform manual functions on the project periodically. Manual redundancies or overrides should be built into all automated processes. Airplanes have manual redundancies that are used in disengaging the auto-pilot when it malfunctions. Employees should be trained to handle both manual and automation processes just like pilots - who can fly an airplane on auto pilot and manually. Automation on older and/or existing missions should only be encouraged after a thorough risk and cost/benefits analysis has been done