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SpaceOps 2006 - Conference

th The mission planning system for AGILE mission

G. Del Bello1, A. Michetti1, F. D’Amico2 (*)

1Telespazio S.p.A., a Finmeccanica/Alcatel company, Fucino Space Center, 67050 Ortucchio (AQ), Italy 2Telespazio S.p.A., a Finmeccanica/Alcatel company, Headquarter, 00156 Rome, Italy

1 Why the Agile Mission Control Centre (MCC)

When Telespazio started the analysis of the Agile mission, due to the mission profile, the necessity of a

system devoted to the on board activities planning has immediately been pointed out. Then, during the

system design phase, while executing the “make or buy” analysis, some major considerations like the costs

for proprietary system customization, and the proprietary system characteristics related to the system

reusability and the system configurability lead the decision of an internal mission planning system

development.

Analysis on commercial tools has highlighted how proprietary systems generally provides good technologies

and a good technical support, but unfortunately they always introduced a set of drawbacks too. Each system

supplier, for instance, defined their own proprietary standards, and proprietary file formats, so that the costs

for adaptation becomes often prohibitive for small missions like Agile is.

MCC heritage is based on mission planning solutions used in Telespazio to manage other missions ( e.g.:

Artemis, from ESA, or Sicral, from Italian MoD). Each mission implements a dedicated mission specific

solution. Unfortunately the costs of developing these systems often ran around the 100k’s of Euros : so, for

the Agile mission, but having in mind further application in similar missions, Telespazio decided :

I. to invest time and effort into the identification of a generic mission planning solution

II. to use open source/freeware products as much as possible in order to lower the costs of such a generic mission planning solution to a level which could support the small and cheaper concept

satellites as such Agile.

Telespazio developed MCC based on its experience on mission planning solution and satellite operations

conduction, covering all functionalities required by the Agile mission, but easily expandable by simply

customizing the application database or by adding mission specific functionality.

2 MCC Role in S/C Operations Execution

The purpose of MCC is to ensure the overall consistency of the Payload operational requests, expressed in

an activity plan issued by the Agile payload users, against the operational constraints, prior to convert the

obtained combined operations plan into telecommand sequences for the satellite control center (SCC).

The detailed objectives for MCC are:

• Checks of the operation requests (Payload, Flight Dynamics and Spacecraft) against the rules and constraints.

• Automatic translation of all the payload activities in telecommand sequences suitable for SCOS 2000 Control Centre;

• Automatic translation of the S/C platform activities in telecommand sequences ( e.g.: S/C repointing manoeuvres) suitable for SCOS 2000 Control Centre;

• Automatic send of telecommand sequences to the SCC;

• Automatic management of the file exchange with the ASDC;

• Automatic management of the routine flight operations;

• Replanning management (including on board queue cleaning of previous plan);

SpaceOps 2006 Conference AIAA 2006-5722