Space Operations: Contributions from the Global Community

Natural lunar analogues are terrestrial analogue environments like deserts, craters or other surfaces on Earth which are representative for terrain, soil, etc. of the Moon.Artificial lunar analogues are human-made terrestrial facilities and/or tools that provide conditions that are analogue to specific conditions on the Moon or to conditions in human-made environments on the Moon (e.g. a lunar lander or habitat) and that can be used to simulate and train lunar exploration missions. Artificial lunar analogues can be physical, virtual or a combination of both.

The ESA METERON (Multi-purpose End-To-End Robotic Operations Network) was born with the idea of creating a test-bed that could provide essential experience for planning and preparing future human–robotic exploration missions to the Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies, which involve controlling advanced robots on Earth using “telepresence” control equipment.

The goal of the Autonomous Mobile On-Orbit Diagnostic System (AMODS) is to use the small satellite platform to provide a conventional satellite with cost-effective on-orbit assessment and repair services. AMODS, which will service both new and legacy spacecraft, is comprised of (1) several “repair” CubeSat-class satellites (RSats) with manipulable arms that will latch onto and locomote around a host satellite; and (2) one self-propelled transport CubeSat (BRICSat) designed to successively deliver multiple RSats to their respective host spacecraft on-orbit. AMODS will be validated in three phases. Phase one focuses on propulsive and proximity operations of the BRICSat vehicle and includes the launch of BRICSat-P on 20 May 2015 and BRICSat-D in 2017. Phase two, the 2017 launch of the prototype repair unit, RSat-P, will validate the on-orbit effectiveness of compact robotic manipulators. The follow-on launches will continue to improve performance of both satellites in order to demonstrate key capabilities that will make the AMODS vision a reality. This publication presents an overview of the AMODS system and its potential to effect a paradigm shift in space operations. It details the considerations and required capabilities that guided the design of the BRICSat transfer vehicle and the robotic manipulators and end-effectors on the RSat unit.

The time-honoured method that operations engineers use to check that the mission (space and ground control) is performing as expected is by implementing checks in the operational databases. These are typically checks to see if spacecraft parameter values are between predefined limits or in predefined states. There are also command verification checks contained in the procedures or integrated into the control system. These are checks to see if spacecraft parameter values are between predefined limits or in predefined states after a command has been sent. Two important trends to note are that the number of spacecraft telemetry parameters and telecommands keeps increasing with time and the manpower for operating the ground systems keeps being reduced. This means that the present systems, involving engineers defining these checks individually and manually in operational databases/procedures, are by nature incomplete. What is needed in the future is a system that can derive checks automatically from historical data. Once such an automatic system exists, it can be expanded to check many more spacecraft telemetry parameters, verify more commands and check more procedure steps with very little effort on the ground side. It can also be used to check much more useful features in the telemetry than the present limit and status checks employed.

Routine operations of a telecommunication satellite fleet are simple. Gyro maintenance procedures (once or twice a year), the earth eclipse seasons in spring and autumn, and the moon occasionally blocking the sun or interfering with the earth sensors add some spice, but otherwise the 2-week station-keeping cycle sets the monotonous pace of a telecom satellite control center.Even though procedure execution may be automated in a given ground segment, human operators are still needed for monitoring them. Large fleets need an absolute minimum of two operators on shift, often more. Further, routine flight dynamics computations also require engineer assessment and intervention. Finally, humans shall coordinate the satellite monitoring and control (MCS), flight dynamics (FDS), and station monitoring and control (MAC) subsystems.

DLR GfR mbH is a company of the German Aerospace Center DLR. The major task of DLR GfR is to operate the satellite constellation of the European satellite navigation system, Galileo, from the Galileo Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. The current Galileo constellation consists of 18 satellites (December 2016); the full constellation will consist of 30 satellites. DLR GfR is also a certified air navigation service provider with a focus on precise aircraft landing systems using GNSS and future combinations of air and space applications. In addition, DLR GfR is working on a roadmap for the implementation of a European Space Traffic Management.

During October 2014–April 2015, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) conducted a feasibility study for the purpose of identifying potential areas of cooperation in lunar robotic exploration activities. A key objective of the joint study was to define a space communications architecture that will serve as a framework for accommodating the communications and navigation capabilities and services provided by NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN); the Korea DSN (KDSN), a potential lunar relay; the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO); and the KPLO Mission Operations System (MOS). This lunar communications architecture is intended to support, in addition to the KPLO mission (to be launched in 2018), other lunar potential missions, i.e., NASA or KARI lunar CubeSat missions and a NASA Resource Prospector mission, to be operational in the 2018–2021 time frame. A salient feature of this architecture is the service paradigm propagated from that of the DSN. Both DSN and KDSN will operate on a multi-mission basis, serving multiple flight missions concurrently. They execute a set of standard services through Consultative Committee on Space Data Standard (CCSDS)-compliant standard protocols to communicate with the spacecraft of the user missions over the space-ground communications link and CCSDS-compliant standard interfaces with the MOS over the ground-to-ground link. In other words, they are interoperable to each other, and from the viewpoint of the user missions of KARI and NASA, they can obtain “cross support” by the network assets of the two agencies. The second feature of the lunar space communications architecture is the existence of a prototypical lunar network, enabled by the lunar relay asset. This is a new type of communications asset in the lunar region. Three different relay configurations, i.e., the integrated relay payload, the hosted relay payload, and the independent relay satellite, were assessed for their feasibility, functionality, and performance. Another feature is the multiplicity of the communications links, i.e., trunk link, in situ link, and direct to/from Earth (DTE/DFE) links, and their associated complexity due to the diversity of user missions, e.g., multiple frequency bands (X-, S-, and UHF-bands) to be supported by the radios in the system architecture.

The most commonly used mode of communications between Earth and a Mars surface mission is ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radio relay via a Mars orbiter. There are four orbiters and two surface rovers operating at Mars and by October there should be five orbiters and three landers or rovers. There has been some collaboration between ESA’s Mars Express orbiter and NASA’s rovers, but 2016 is when Mars relay becomes fully international. In October, ESA will deliver the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) Demonstrator Module (EDM) lander to Mars. The ExoMars program includes both ESA and ROSCOSMOS, with NASA participation (the Electra UHF transceiver on TGO). NASA orbiters will provide relay for EDM and future ESA Mars landers and rovers. TGO will provide relay for NASA’s current and future surface assets (as Mars Express will continue to do).

For the first time in almost 40 years, a NASA human-rated launch vehicle has completed its Critical Design Review (CDR). With this milestone, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft are on the path to launch a new era of deep space exploration. This first launch of SLS and the Orion spacecraft is planned no later than November 2018 and will fly along a translunar trajectory, testing the performance of the SLS and Orion systems for future missions. NASA is making investments to expand the science and exploration capability of the SLS by developing the capability to deploy small satellites during the translunar phase of the mission trajectory. Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) will include 13 6U CubeSat small satellites to be deployed beyond low Earth orbit. By providing an Earth-escape trajectory, opportunities are created for the advancement of small satellite subsystems, including deep space communications and in-space propulsion. This SLS capability also creates low-cost options for addressing existing agency strategic knowledge gaps and affordable science missions. A new approach to payload integration and mission assurance is needed to ensure safety of the vehicle while also maintaining reasonable costs for the small payload developer teams. SLS EM-1 will provide the framework and serve as a test flight, not only for vehicle systems but also payload accommodations, ground processing, and on-orbit operations. Through developing the requirements and integration processes for EM-1, NASA is outlining the framework for the evolved configuration of secondary payloads on SLS Block upgrades. The lessons learned from the EM-1 mission will be applied to processes and products developed for future block upgrades. In the heavy-lift configuration of SLS, payload accommodations will increase for secondary opportunities including small satellites larger than the traditional CubeSat-class payload. The payload mission concept of operations, proposed payload capacity of SLS, and the payload requirements for launch and deployment will be described to provide potential payload users an understanding of this unique exploration capability.

Shortly after JPL’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission launches, separates, and commences its cruise phase, two CubeSats will deploy from the launch vehicle’s upper stage and begin independent flight to Mars (Fig. 1). During InSight’s entry, descent, and landing (EDL) sequence, these twin Mars Cube One (MarCO) spacecraft will fly 3500 km above the Martian surface, recording and relaying InSight UHF radio data to the Deep Space Network (DSN) on Earth [1].

Subsequent to the launch of the first Nigerian satellite into space in September 2003, the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Abuja, Nigeria, has demonstrated peaceful use of outer space through the commercial, educational, humanitarian and governmental applications of its five successfully launched satellites so far. The nation has also maintained a sustainable national development since achieving this feat by joining other nations in space operations. Satellite operations are carried out indigenously by Nigerian engineers and scientists from the Mission Control Ground Station (MCGS), Abuja, Nigeria. Its three remote sensing satellites, NigeriaSat-1, NigeriaSat-X and NigeriaSat-2, and two communication satellites, NIGCOMSAT-1 and NIGCOMSAT-1R, have addressed the status of space operations and complied with its peaceful use of outer space. With the successful completion of its mission lifetime, NigeriaSat-1 which was in the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) was de-orbited after about 9 years of useful and peaceful satellite operations. During its mission lifetime, it responded to both local and international disasters including sustainable development campaigns initiated jointly or individually for satellites in the constellation such as Hurricane Katrina and the development of a national resource inventory showing land-use/land-cover mapping at 1:50,000 among others. In continuation of these recorded achievements, NigeriaSat-X and NigeriaSat-2 which are advanced Earth observation (EO) microsatellites equipped with enhanced imaging performance for improved capability and applications have equally witnessed improved satellite operations from the Abuja MCGS. NIGCOMSAT-1 and NIGCOMSAT-1R have also been applied in telemedicine, teleconferencing, data transfer, internet services, e-library, etc. In the course of our satellite operations, useful lessons have been learnt in the management and operations of more than one satellite from a single ground station for the remote sensing satellites. Therefore, in this paper, we review and share our operational experiences, achievements and future direction on our quest into space for sustainable development through the use of our remote sensing and communication satellites.

In the old days, spacecraft alarming notifications to operators were directed, upon arrival to ground, to one of those needle printers. Trained operators could tell, from the length and rhythm of the printer noise, what kind of alarm it was and therefore infer the criticality or the subject. Today, in monitoring and control systems (MCS) currently in use at the European Space Agency (ESA), there is no care to convey information in the sounds, and these alarm sounds have not been systematically designed to indicate the type of system failure and further elicit the desired and accurate operator response. Operators depend heavily on the graphical interfaces in order to pinpoint the source of alarm sounds (see Fig. 1) which further creates cognitive load. Similarly, switching cost from auditory perception to visual perception while finding the source of the information is undesirable when time can be a precious commodity for operators when monitoring valuable spacecraft. Therefore, ESA teamed up with Delft University of Technology and Plymouth University in order to investigate and design a new auditory display for the control rooms located in the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), in Darmstadt, Germany

This paper describes a methodology for the development of mission operations systems (MOS) that leverages model-based system engineering (MBSE) techniques to make the system engineering process more rigorous and repeatable and, ultimately, to lower the cost and risk associated with MOS development. It does so by casting many of the conventional system engineering products such as requirements, interface designs and specifications, and operations processes in a structured, reusable form. This paper begins (Sect. 2) by contrasting this structured methodology with more conventional practice of system engineering in the formulation and design phases. Section 3 reviews key architectural concepts that enable the approach and that arise from considering the development of mission operations systems from a product-line perspective, rather than as singular, unique creations in the context of a single flight project. Sections 4 and 5 describe (respectively) the structure of a multi-mission operations system (MMOS) model and the methods used to adapt the MMOS for use in a particular project context. Section 6 describes adoption by a number of diverse flight projects to date, challenges they face, and advantages that they have or expect to accrue as they continue development or begin flight operations.

One of the keys to improve operation of a ground segment is to become more efficient in the use of the given assets. For ground station hardware, this may mean to establish pool concepts and reuse the existing hardware whenever possible for several missions. In addition, one can reduce the need of having spare parts at hand if one is able to use one given part as spare for any system, wherever it is needed. The former requires to be prepared to support any mission on any available hardware, usually named “multi-mission concept.” The latter can be achieved in two ways: Either one uses equal types of equipment for all systems—which is hard to maintain for a variety of systems over a long time span—or one is prepared to dynamically change parts of the system, without changing the performance of the system. We shall call this feature, the ability to replace some hardware by different equipment, without changing the way the system as a whole is operated, a “plug and play solution.”

The French space agency (CNES) needed to acquire Ariane 5 launcher telemetry leading up to and including spacecraft separation that would occur south-east of New Zealand for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) campaigns to resupply the International Space Station (ISS). No established ground stations were available for this purpose.

The Solar Probe Plus (SPP) spacecraft will fly to less than ten solar radii of the Sun and take in situ measurements to determine the mechanisms that produce the fast and slow solar winds, the coronal heating, and the transport of energetic particles. To survive in such extreme conditions, the thermal protection shield (TPS) must remain pointed toward the sun at all times.

Mission planning involves the processing of requested operations by multiple stakeholders taking into consideration aspects such as the mission planning rules, operational constraints and on-board resources availability. These aspects derive from a number of sources including the overall mission definition, operations principles, manning/effort and resource management, like power consumption or data generation and return.

ESA is managing assets of very high tangible and intangible value. A key driver to protect these assets is information security, and in fact it has emerged as a strategic objective for the agency. The essential elements of the overall system design are authentication and confidentiality services that are realized through end-to-end security controls.

CNES HPC center is involved in multiple federated mission centers. Current and upcoming space missions are tremendous data generators due to sensor improvements.

The adoption of Model-Based Engineering (MBE) methodologies for the development of complex software systems has increased significantly in recent years. MBE is an approach which focuses on creating and exploiting domain models rather than on the computing concepts. The objective is that the model can make sense from the point of view of a user that is familiar with the domain, but which then also serves as a basis for implementing the software system. The abstraction level of decisions is raised to the model level rather than at the software level.

The New Horizons encounter with the Pluto system was a historic achievement in planetary exploration. Launched on January 19, 2006, the spacecraft executed its close encounter with Pluto on July 14, 2015, acquiring the first-ever close up data of Pluto, its five known satellites, and the surrounding plasma and particle environment. During its 9½ year cruise, the spacecraft also conducted a flyby of an asteroid in 2006 and a Jupiter gravity assist in 2007 during which over 700 observations of Jupiter, the Galilean satellites, and the plasma and particle environment near Jupiter were acquired. Led by Principal Investigator Alan Stern, New Horizons was the first launch of NASA’s New Frontiers Program and the first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

The Rosetta orbiter reached its target, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, mid-2014 at a distance of 3 astronomical units (AU) from the sun. For the first time ever, a spacecraft could escort a comet during an extended period of time and especially while getting closer to the sun (at perihelion in August 2015, 67P was at distance of 1.24 AU from the sun). An exceptional device, the so-called Philae Lander, was also on board Rosetta until its delivery in November 2014. It was the first device designed to land on a comet surface and to perform in situ analysis of the nucleus. Philae was a contribution to the Rosetta mission by a European consortium, composed by DLR, CNES, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), Italian Space Agency (ASI), Hungary Research Institute (KFKI), United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Space Technology Ireland Ltd (STIL), and Austrian Space Research Institute (IWF).

Dawn, one of NASA’s Discovery Program missions, was launched on September 27, 2007, to explore two residents of the main asteroid belt in order to yield insights into important science questions about the formation and evolution of the solar system [1]. Its main objective is to acquire data from orbit around two complementary bodies, Vesta and Ceres, the two most massive objects in the main belt. From July of 2011 to September of 2012, the Dawn spacecraft orbited Vesta and returned much valuable science data, collected during the six planned mapping orbits at the protoplanet. Figure 1 depicts the Dawn’s interplanetary trajectory and timeline.

Venus Express was launched in November 2005 to study the atmosphere of Venus, the interaction with its surface and its interplanetary environment (i.e., solar winds). The probe performed a successful Orbit insertion followed by a series of orbit correction maneuvers to achieve the anticipated 24-h orbit in April 2006. The Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS) had been equipped with the Braking Mode (BM) that allows Aerobraking in case of a main engine failure during orbit correction and for later scientific studies. Aerobraking is a technique wherein an orbiting spacecraft brushes against the top of a planetary atmosphere. The friction and pressure forces of the atmosphere against the surface of the spacecraft dissipate the kinetic energy slowing down the velocity, thus, lowering the craft’s orbital altitude. The spacecraft heat is radiated to space between successive passes [1].

LISA Pathfinder (LPF) tests the concept of low-frequency gravitational wave detection in flight: it puts two test masses into a near-perfect gravitational free fall, controlling and measuring their motion with unprecedented accuracy. LPF’s operational orbit is a 500,000 km by 800,000 km free-insertion orbit around the Lagrange point L₁, also called the Sun-Earth libration point 1, which is located about 1.5 million kilometers toward the Sun. This orbit fulfills the disturbance requirements of the LPF technology demonstration package, while providing also an acceptable communication distance of less than 1.8 × 106 km.

The SPOT5/TAKE5 experiment benefited from the Earth observation SPOT5 satellite after the end of its commercial mission and before its de-orbiting by repurposing SPOT5 as a simulator for ESA’s Sentinel-2 constellation’s multitemporal series of optical images. Implementing TAKE5 represented a challenging opportunity for SPOT5 which had not been designed for such a mission.

The involvement of the French Space Agency in GALILEO Launch and Early in Orbit Phase (LEOP) operations dates from 2006. This involvement has required the development of an organization that is able to answer to the mission requirements taking into account operations recurrence and taking full advantage of the partnership between the French Space Agency (CNES) and the European Space Operations Center Teams (ESOC). The implementation of this organization at flight dynamics level has been set up for the first GALILEO launch in 2011 and, then, improved launch after launch. The objective of this chapter is to give an overview of the way CNES Flight Dynamics operations are organized after 9 years and four launch campaigns taking as illustration the fourth launch. After a general description of GALILEO LEOP concepts, the CNES Flight Dynamics team organization will be detailed and then illustrated in the light of the Flight Dynamics operations performed for the 4th launch, from preparation to the end of execution.

As the space activities of human beings increase, the amount of space debris is constantly increasing. The increase of space debris is making the space environment complicated, in particular, in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Each country is exerting a lot of effort toward the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) to solve such problems. For SSA, we basically need to detect and track space objects. The ground-based radars play the largest role in surveillance and tracking space objects.

During more than 50 years, the French Space Agency (CNES) has performed balloon flights from France, mostly from the Aire-sur-l’Adour balloon base in the South-west of France. Gradually, it became difficult to find the safe landing zones at the end of the flight due to the road density, the residential and industrial areas, or all the outside human activities. This normal infrastructure growth has an impact on the number of acceptable trajectories and also on the risk level associated to each flight.

Current space telescopes have a single structure, and consequently, their focal length cannot be increased sufficiently. Sometimes, this problem may prevent the improvement of the resolution of the telescope. To solve this problem, the concept of virtual telescope has been proposed. A virtual telescope consists of two spacecraft: one has a lens system and the other has a detector system. By using formation flying, the two spacecraft can be simplified as a virtual telescope system. Then, their relative orbit distance can serve as a baseline for the virtual telescope system [1, 2]. The most important issue in a virtual telescope is to perform inertial alignment with respect to a celestial object and to maintain it in space. Inertial alignment means that the relative position and relative attitude of the two spacecraft are simultaneously aligned with a target.

A Mars Operational Simulation Exercise was performed by a class of senior undergraduates and graduates to educate the students both on how human spaceflight operations are currently done and on how these operations might evolve in the future. Four structured, operational “Tiger Teams” worked on a Design Reference Infrastructure for a hypothetical Mars exploration scenario that included novel aspects such as Mars moon bases, small vehicles for in-system transportation, and substantial teleoperation. The teams then developed operational plans to address an emergency scenario. Through extending the principles of human spaceflight to a future Mars exploration scenario, a number of key lessons were learned on how future Mars mission operations should be run. In particular it was found that there needs to be a tight feedback loop between technological development and operations, and that a paradigm shift is necessary in the way operations are performed to be applicable to a Mars system. A second, updated iteration of the exercise supported these findings. The exercises identified that similar, in-depth simulations can be powerful tools to drive current mission and system design for Mars exploration. This chapter presents the details on the Mars Operational Simulation Exercise and the key findings that resulted.