Gonzalo Garcia

High-Impact Performance Processing Capabilities in Operational Mission Planning and Scheduling Systems

Increased operational constraints on spacecraft and ground station operations have led to stricter ground software management and better performance throughput. For Mission Planning and Scheduling Systems, the ability to process numerous scheduling and planning input requests from multiple systems, applying high-level logistical rules, and providing export capabilities to all external entities, including the spacecraft itself, must be balanced against system performance. The constraint on the processing time of the schedule comes from a mission-defined need-by time, which is driven by execution or contact time. flexplan, an operational Mission Planning and Scheduling (MPS) system, has addressed the balance of performance and system capabilities. flexplan utilizes a combination of a relational database and soft-algorithm scheduling to maximize system performance. This paper demonstrates the method for the design of the internal database processing and maintenance. Performance methodologies and capabilities are presented to demonstrate software strength in two case studies: The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) low lunar-orbit science mission currently operational and the Ground Network Schedule System (GNSS) multi-mission, multi-stations study of NASA’s infrastructure.

Integrating and Optimizing Design: Reconfiguration and Management of Payloads

The increasing flexibility of modern communication satellites is making it much more difficult to identify the payload reconfiguration that best accommodates the failure of a component and/or changing operational constraints. Payload engineers spend many hours analyzing the payload design and constraints to identify a reconfiguration solution that does not violate physical and performance requirements of the payload. Payload designers spend even more time to design, optimize and validate a new payload. In general, reuse of previous payload layouts is a common approach to design new payload. The smart rings suite of products is an optional component of hifly, GMV’s complete monitoring and control solution for satellite fleet operations. It provides the payload engineers with the capability to easily reconfigure the entire payload of a communications satellite. smart rings is a multi-payload tool and allows to model modern payloads layouts and behaviors, including both “bent pipe” as well as spot-beam payloads. Functionalities are provided for the whole life-cycle of the payload. The flight configuration of the payload can be obtained from housekeeping TM by directly interfacing with the control center. In addition, smart rings allows the payload engineer to further specify the problem scenario, including the identification of payload device status as well as selection of operational constrains. The graphical interface provides advanced features to view and monitor the payload including a multiple and two-way rendering of the signal paths. The tool features a generic reconfiguration algorithm that computes all feasible solutions for the defined scenario attending to a series of optimization criteria. Each candidate target configuration is presented along a list of qualifying parameters that characterize the solution. The payload engineer can then compare the different configurations based on their qualifying parameters and select the solution that best fulfils the actual operational constraints. The chosen configuration can be formatted and uploaded to the target control center as a list of telecommands, a procedure or as an offline report. This technology represents a huge leap forward in the operations of communications satellites. It not only enables a dramatic reduction in the time required to reconfigure a payload when the need arises, but also provides payload engineers with a “what-if” tool that allows to be prepared for future component failures. It has been integrated with different real-time system in different missions: THOR6, Sirius-4, AMC-14 and AMC-5R. An editor allows the user to create and design a new payload using a component library. The component library can be customized and new specific components with specific behaviors can be created for a specific payload. The tool uses the generic reconfiguration algorithm to provide fault-tolerance analysis and redundancy analysis. Other optional components allow the operator to integrate completely the management of the payload and the antenna, to define and schedule a transmission plan and controlling the usage of the payload.

Centralized Mission Planning and Scheduling System for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (Landsat 8)

Satellites in Low Earth Orbit provide missions with closer range for studying aspects such as geography and topography, but often require efficient utilization of space and ground assets. Optimizing schedules for these satellites amounts to a complex planning puzzle since it requires operators to face issues such as discontinuous ground contacts, limited onboard memory storage, constrained downlink margin, and shared ground antenna resources. To solve this issue for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM, Landsat 8), all the scheduling exchanges for science data request, ground/space station contact, and spacecraft maintenance and control will be coordinated through a centralized Mission Planning and Scheduling (MPS) engine, based upon GMV’s scheduling system flexplan 9 . The synchronization between all operational functions must be strictly maintained to ensure efficient mission utilization of ground and spacecraft activities while working within the bounds of the space and ground resources, such as Solid State Recorder (SSR) and available antennas. This paper outlines the functionalities that the centralized planning and scheduling system has in its operational control and management of the Landsat 8 spacecraft.

Migration of WorldSpace legacy flight dynamics system to focusGEO

This paper presents the process followed in the migration of the flight dynamics system of two geostationary EuroStar 2000+ satellites from the legacy system delivered by the satellite manufacturer that was becoming obsolete to a platform independent, state-of-theart system. Since the satellites had been operational for several years carrying payload traffic it was necessary to ensure a smooth migration between systems. In this paper the authors describe the validation and transition process, as well as some lessons learned.

High Performance Telemetry Archiving and Trending for Satellite Control Centers

For modern mission operations, ground systems need to provide powerful means to access and exploit mission data. Key capabilities have to be addressed for satellite telemetry data including the following: 1) Ability to efficiently, reliably, and transparently maintain all mission data available for the entire mission lifetime. 2) Fully integrated capability to switch between viewing real-time data and historical data from the same display. 3) High performance data retrieval and analysis capabilities: archiva allows retrieving several years of telemetry in a few seconds. 4) Wide data availability to users with different roles working from different environments. 5) Flexibility and configurability for computing, storage and visualization.

Reducing the Cost of Ground Systems for Earth Observation Missions

The satellite-based Earth observation sector has been growing from a mainly institutional market to a mixed institutional / private market with a continuously increasing participation of private companies. Originally, EO satellite operators were all institutional (ESA, NASA, Russian Space Agency, and other governmental institutions including military operators) but since the mid 1980s a number of commercial satellite operators were established (SpotImage, InfoTerra, RapidEye in Europe; DigitalGlobe, SpaceImaging, OrbImage and Astrovision in the US; RadarSat in Canada and ImageSat International in Israel). According to a recent Euroconsult study (“Satellite-Based Earth Observation, Market Prospects to 2017”) the market is entering a new expansion phase with more than 150 new satellites expected to be launched through 2017 (almost double the number launched over the previous ten years). Growth will be fuelled primarily by the promising private sector and dynamic emerging space programs.

Optimizing Satellite Payload Reconfiguration with SmartRings

The increasing flexibility of mode rn communication satellites is making it much more difficult to identify the payload reconfiguration that best accommodates the failure of a component and/or changing operational constraints. Payload engineers spend many hours analyzing the payload design and constraints to identify a reconfiguration solution that does not violate physical and performance requirements of the payload. SmartRings is an optional component of hifly ® , GMV’s complete monitoring and control solution for satellite fleet operations . SmartRings provides the payload engineers with the capability to easily reconfigure the entire payload of a communications satellite. SmartRings allows to model modern payloads layouts and behaviors, including both “bent pipe” as well as spot-beam payloads. The flight configuration of the payload can be obtained from housekeeping TM by directly interfacing with the control center. In addition, SmartRings allows the payload engineer to further specify the problem scenario, including the identification of p ayload device status (possibly not reported in TM; a comprehensive list of operational statuses is supported: operational, failed, stuck switches, parked TWTAs or amplifiers, etc) as well as selection of operational constrains (channels that must not be di sturbed, channels that must be in service after the reconfiguration, etc). The tool features a generic reconfiguration algorithm that computes all feasible solutions for the defined scenario attending to a series of optimization criteria (minimizing either the number of channels that are disturbed, the number of switches to be operated, the number of switch rotations or the signal degradation). Each candidate target configuration is presented along a list of qualifying parameters that characterize the solution. These include the number of disturbed channels, the number of rotated switches, the number of switch rotations and the signal attenuation prior to the amplification (at the TWTA) of the downlink signal. The payload engineer can then compare the different configurations based on their qualifying parameters and select the solution that best fulfils the actual operational constraints. Finally, the chosen configuration can be formatted and uploaded to the target control center as a list of telecommands, a procedure or as an offline report. SmartRings represents a huge leap forward in the operations of communication s satellites. It not only enables a dramatic reduction in the time required to reconfigure a payload when the need arises, but also provides payload engineers with a “what-if” tool that allows to be prepared for future component failures.