European Space Agency

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European Space Agency
Operations Automation for the Rosetta Mission
SpaceOps2004, Montréal, Canada, May 17-21, 2004
Alessandro Ercolani, Paolo FerriEuropean Space
Agency - ESOC
A. Simonic, Vitrociset SpA A. Kowalczyk, SciSys
Ltd T. Ulriksen, Terma GmbH

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Outline

• The Rosetta Mission
• The need for operations automation
• ASE for Rosetta demonstrator implementation
• Lessons Learned
• Conclusions

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The Rosetta Mission

• Comet Exploration
• Large spacecraft (3-ton), 3-axis stabilised,
  solar array powered
• Launch March 2nd, 2004
• 10 years cruise (2004-2014), max distances
  reached 5.3 AU from Sun, 6.3 AU from Earth
• 3 Earth fly-by, 1 Mars fly-by
• Rendezvous with Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, 2
  years orbiting the nucleus at distances down to 1
  Km
• Lander delivery at about 3 AU distance from Sun
  and Earth

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The Rosetta Spacecraft
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The need for automation

• The mission is more than 10 years long
• There are extended cruise phases in which
  activity is reduced to a bare minimum (with no
  need for immediate reaction to contingencies)
• During routine passes the activity of the
  Spacecraft Controllers is well defined via
  procedures
• An automation tool could substitute the
  Spacecraft Controller during cruise phases, and
  support him during routine operations

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What level of automation?

• The ideal situation(?) Lights-out operations
• Automation of spacecraft monitoring and control
  activity
• Reception of telemetry
• Uplink of telecommands
• Detection of spacecraft anomalies and recovery
  actions (e.g. automatic request for human
  intervention S/C Controller)
• Automation of mission control system activity
• Check of the MCS status
• Start-up, utilisation and close down of MCS
  applications
• Detection of MCS anomalies and recovery actions
  (e.g. automatic request for human intervention
  Software Support)

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A first step toward automation

• ESOC initiative to the introduction of automation
  
• Identification of typical pass activity that
  could be automated
• Identification of the control system
  applications/functionality involved in this
  automation exercise
• Prototype implementation of a demonstrator to
  validate the concept in a realistic environment
• The goals of the demonstrator activity
• Flight control team to gain experience in this
  field, identifying more precisely the
  requirements for an automation system
• Identify the principal areas of MCS (Scos-2000)
  that need improvements to fully support automation

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An automation demonstrator

• Preparatory phase
• Use of ASE for automatic schedule execution
• Pass procedures written by flight control team
  using the PLUTO language (ECSS-E-70-32)
• Adaptation of the Rosetta control system to
  interact with ASE
• Upgrade of the external interfaces and
  modification of some applications to allow
  interaction with the automation tool
• Demonstration
• Control system connected to Rosetta EQM and ASE
• Nominal pass activity automatically executed with
  no human intervention

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The system components
EQM
SCOS CLIENT
CONTROL

TM
TC
TM
TC
ASE
TC
CONTROL
TM
TM
SCOS Server
NCTRS
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The Rosetta EQM at Esoc

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ASE The automation tool

• Implemented by Vitrociset SpA
• Based on ECSS-E-70-32 PLUTO Language
• Includes
• Space System Model (SSM) modelling the mission
  space and ground elements and providing the data
  interface to external world (e.g. Rosetta Mission
  Control System)
• Procedure and SSM Preparation Environment
• Procedure Scheduling and Execution Environment

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ASE The High Level Concept
Procedure Editor
Space System Model
Compiled Procedures
Scheduling and Execution
SSM Editor
Space System Model Definition
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Structure of a PLUTO Procedure
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The procedure implemented

• Start command stack
• Start monitoring application and load displays of
  interest
• Get telemetry and look for anomalies
• Check spacecraft and ground segment preconditions
  for the start of command activity
• Load and execute command files of various types
  (time-tagged commands, for immediate execution,
  file transfer)
• Produce printouts and reports
• Close down the applications

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Lessons learned

• The control of the MCS is fundamental, and the
  current Scos-2000 infrastructure needs
  improvement to fully support automation
• An automation tool must be driven by procedures
  generated and controlled via the standard
  procedures management tool
• The procedure preparation environment should be
  separated from the procedure execution
  environment

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Conclusions

• For lights-out operations it is essential to
  reach a full level of automation. This is
  extremely complex and expensive
• Nevertheless, a lower level of automation of
  spacecraft operations can lead to substantial
  savings. The right compromise must be reached
• The mission control system itself must be fully
  capable of being controlled by an external entity
• Inputs for the Scos-2000 automation project
• More experience is needed in order to define the
  proper strategy for anomaly detection and recovery