Flying Mars Express A Day in the Cockpit

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Flying Mars ExpressA Day in the Cockpit

• Zeina Mounzer
• June 2006

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What triggered the process?

• Intelligent control of automated production
• Fine and timely adjustment to the environment
• Non-disturbing maintenance of a running service
• Permanent process evaluation and feedback
• Maintenance of a customer service, aware of
  technical possibilities and constraints

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History of Current Routine Operations Approach

• One Spacecraft to fulfil all dreams
• Piloting a new machine in a new environment
• Never ending special and critical activities
• Routine, Commissioning and Maintenance in
  parallel
• Flying close to the limits of the system
• Complex Earth Mars Communications
  infrastructure
• Mission agility, automation and human checks

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Permitted Variant (insert own charts)
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Routine Generation of Command Streams
GS Scheduling
Flight Dynamics
Science
Flight Control
Mission Planning
RSci
TTC
Data Dump
AOCS
GS Products
Science
SOC
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Permitted Variant (insert own charts)
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Flexible and Safe Control The Functions

• The Spacecraft Operations Coordinator (SOC)
• The Surveillance and data Optimisation Engineer
  (SOE)
• The Spacecraft Controller (SPACON)

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The Safety Nets

• The Guidelines
• Ensure zero-default quality of the commanding
  products
• Ensure that all commanding products are delivered
  timely and safely to the spacecraft
• Ensure delivery of the on-board recorded science
  data to the requesting science team
• Configuration Control
• Graphical Uplink Overview (Ollygram)
• The SOC folder
• The SIF folder
• Science Data Gap database
• Anomaly Reporting and Tracking System (ARTS)

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Permitted Variant (insert own charts)
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Pros and Cons of the Process

• Labour Intensive
• Stressful
• Prone to error
• Increased safety
• Flexibility
• Mission System Knowledge across the team ? Less
  dependance on SOM
• Interaction between groups ? Cross Support
• Variation Motivation

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What is it Like to Fly Mars Express

• Makes you never wanting to step out of the
  PILOTs seat !!!