Paolo Ferri

Utilising Rosetta commonality to reduce mission operations cost for Mars Express

Abstract The European Space Agency is preparing two major deep-space scientific missions for launch in 2003: Rosetta, a mission to comet P-Wirtanen, and Mars Express, a Mars Orbiter with a lander. In order to remain within the extremely tight budget available for the Mars Express ground segment development and operations, this mission will inherit and re-use as much as possible from what is developed and used for Rosetta. Although the two missions and spacecraft are very different from each other, the key to re-use of ground segment elements is in the identical interfaces to the space segment. This paper describes for the two missions the joint operations concept, the parallel mission preparation activities and the approach to achieve an integrated flight operations team. Cost savings in ground segment development and operations are identified and compared to a traditional solution. The initial implementation experiences are critically presented.

Operational Challenges of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo Mission

The BepiColombo Mission, an interdisciplinary cornerstone mission developed in collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), will be launched in August 2013 towards Mercury from Kourou using a Soyuz/Fregat rocket. The mission will be controlled from the European Space Operations Center of the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany, where all the other ESA interplanetary missions are also controlled. This paper presents the new operational challenges that the operators will have to accommodate compared to previous missions, and assesses their impact on the ground segment development.

Payload Operations in Quiet Cruise: An Interplanetary Mission's Dilemma

The International Rosetta Mission involves a 10 years long interplanetary cruise to rendezvous with the nucleus of a comet. In order to reduce the operations cost, the mission baseline excluded payload operations during cruise, with the exception of a few selected scientific phases (asteroids fly-bys) and of periodic instrument checkout slots. However, soon after launch, it was realised that many reasons can arise to operate the scientific instruments in phases when they were planned to be inactive, from anomaly investigation and troubleshooting to the detection of an unplanned scientific opportunity. In the first two years of flight the Rosetta mission control team had to trade-off the needs and advantages of unplanned payload operations requests with the increase in resources consumption on-board the spacecraft and on the ground. Based on the Rosetta experience, recommendations were derived for future interplanetary missions with a long cruise phase. First, it is easier to keep the level of instrument operations low if the level of spacecraft resources is low, whilst the workload and cost argument on the ground segment side is more difficult to defend. Also, payload operations in cruise can be of significant advantage to a mission, as they allow detection of critical anomalies well ahead of the main scientific mission. This can be achieved without jeopardizing the concept of quiet cruise by carefully inserting windows for payload operations around active mission phases, as part of the mission long-term planning. Finally, scientific operations during cruise are more justifiable if they relate to one of the mission science objectives. Their added value to the mission needs to be carefully assessed against the available resources. These rules are now being applied for the upcoming Rosetta mission phases.

Rosetta Common Check-Out and Control System: A Challenge and a Way to Reduce Cost

The International Rosetta mission will be launched in 2003. After a flight of about 9 years the spacecraft will approach comet P-Wirtanen and orbit it for almost two years, performing scientific investigations of the comet nucleus environment, at distances of the order of a few kilometers from the nucleus surface. Rosetta will also release a probe that will land on the surface of the nucleus to perform in-situ investigations.

The Experience With the EURECA On-Board Autonomous Fault Management Functions

Abstract EURECA, the EUropean REtrievable CArrier was launched in July 1992 and retrieved in June 1993. It is the largest ESA spacecraft ever launched, and the first one designed to be launched and retrieved by the NASA Space Shuttle. The experience gained during the first EURECA mission in dealing with the various failures that occurred is described. Emphasis is given to the actual performance of the autonomous fault management functions, their success or failure in carrying out their task, their impact on mission operations and ground control. Suggestions for potential improvement in the concept of on-board failure handling are given.

Telematics Applications for the Remote Control of Space Missions

Abstract Telematics plays a major role in space exploration, as all space missions involve remote control from ground In addition, some control loops can be closed on-board, by human beings for manned missions, or by automation processes of increasing complexity for unmanned missions. The large distances between the spacecraft and the ground and the irreversibility of hardware failures are key features for the design of telematic applications used for space missions. This paper describes the mission control process on-board and on-ground. Examples taken from the operational experience with a near-Earth spacecraft and a deep-space scientific probe are presented and discussed.

Autonomous Procedure Execution: A Means Of Reducing Rosetta Operations Cost

The International Rosetta Mission is a scientific mission of the European Space Agency. It will be launched in January 2003 and it will reach, after a journey of about 9 years, the nucleus of comet P/Wirtanen, to orbit around it for almost two years. The characteristics of the mission, in particular its long duration and the fact that the most critical and intense operations phases occur many years after launch, induced ESA to define an operations concept that could take advantage of the low activity level required during the cruise phases. The aim was to minimise human intervention during non-critical mission phases by means of automated ground systems operations, in order to reduce the size of the flight control team.

Technology driver-the Rosetta mission

The Rosetta mission is a cometary mission, which will be launched in 2003 by Ariane 5. After a long cruise phase, the satellite will rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen and orbit it, while taking scientific measurements. A Surface Science Package (SSP) will be landed on the comet surface to take in-situ measurements. During the cruise phase, the satellite will be given gravity assist manoeuvres once by Mars and twice by the Earth. The satellite will also take measurements in the fly-bys of two asteroids. The Rosetta mission has characteristics differing quite considerably from those deep space missions hitherto supported at ESOC. One of these is the use of packet telemetry and packet telecommanding. Rosetta is the first ESA deep space mission using these standards. This paper describes in detail how the Rosetta on-board and ground segment design uses packetised telemetry and commands taking into account the deep space characteristic of the Rosetta mission. In particular the paper describes how Rosetta is designed to overcome two major problems with deep space missions, the relative low downlink rate and the long turnaround time for telecommands.