Helene L. Winters

Mini -RF Orbital Planning and Commanding System

We present an efficient science operations planning and commanding sys tem for the Mini -RF instrument. The Mini -RF instrument is a lightweight side -looking radar system that will use Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to obtain images of the lunar polar regions to search for regions of water -ice deposits. The two missions that wi ll carry the Mini -RF instruments are the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chandrayaan -1 lunar orbiter and the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The Science Operations Planning and Commanding Subsystems, a suite of planning and commanding to ols, will be used by a small team of scientists to efficiently construct the operations schedule, and to modify any opportunity to maximize the science obtained.

Miniaturized Radar, Outsized Results

The Mini-RF instrument is a Synthetic Aperture Radar that was awarded “technology demonstration” status onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Mini-RF has a sister instrument called Mini-SAR that flew on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The instruments share a Payload Operations Center (POC) located at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. The LRO instrument has proved to be extremely useful and the stakeholders desire higher use than was originally planned. In fact, the expected data volume for the primary LRO mission increased three hundred-fold from 200 GB to 60 TB. The capabilities of the Mini-RF instrument and POC were increased without burdening the LRO Mission Operations Center (MOC) and personnel. The approach included enacting numerous intermediate manual workarounds with automated solutions following as time and staffing allowed. The Mini-RF team scaled the POC systems to meet the increased demands, enabling Mini-RF to support opportunity targeting and to map large portions of the Moon at both the polar and equatorial regions.

Miniature radar operations challenges

Mini-RF consists of two Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instruments that have both acquired data of the lunar surface. One instrument, referred to as Mini-RF, is currently orbiting the Moon onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft.12 A sister instrument, called Mini-SAR, flew on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The instruments share a Payload Operations Center (POC) located at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.