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35 records · Page 2

Security aspects of space operations data

This paper deals with data security. It identifies security threats to European Space Agency's (ESA) In Orbit Infrastructure Ground Segment (IOI GS) and proposes a method of dealing with its complex data structures from the security point of view. It is part of the 'Analysis of Failure Modes, Effects Hazards and Risks of the IOI GS for Operations, including Backup Facilities and Functions' carried out on behalf of the European Space Operations Center (ESOC). The security part of this analysis has been prepared with the following aspects in mind: ESA's large decentralized ground facilities for operations, the multiple organizations/users involved in the operations and the developments of ground data systems, and the large heterogeneous network structure enabling access to (sensitive) data which does involve crossing organizational boundaries. An IOI GS data objects classification is introduced to determine the extent of the necessary protection mechanisms. The proposal of security countermeasures is oriented towards the European 'Information Technology Security Evaluation Criteria (ITSEC)' whose hierarchically organized requirements can be directly mapped to the security sensitivity classification.

Schmitz, Stefan↗

Overview on METEOSAT geometrical image data processing

Digital Images acquired from the geostationary METEOSAT satellites are processed and disseminated at ESA's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. Their scientific value is mainly dependent on their radiometric quality and geometric stability. This paper will give an overview on the image processing activities performed at ESOC, concentrating on the geometrical restoration and quality evaluation. The performance of the rectification process for the various satellites over the past years will be presented and the impacts of external events as for instance the Pinatubo eruption in 1991 will be explained. Special developments both in hard and software, necessary to cope with demanding tasks as new image resampling or to correct for spacecraft anomalies, are presented as well. The rotating lens of MET-5 causing severe geometrical image distortions is an example for the latter.

Diekmann, Frank J.↗

SCOS 2: ESA's new generation of mission control system

New mission-control infrastructure is currently being developed by ESOC, which will constitute the second generation of the Spacecraft Control Operations system (SCOS 2). The financial, functional and strategic requirements lying behind the new development are explained. The SCOS 2 approach is described. The technological implications of these approaches is described: in particular it is explained how this leads to the use of object oriented techniques to provide the required 'building block' approach. The paper summarizes the way in which the financial, functional and strategic requirements have been met through this combination of solutions. Finally, the paper outlines the development process to date, noting how risk reduction was achieved in the approach to new technologies and summarizes the current status future plans.

Jones, M.↗

SCOSII OL: A dedicated language for mission operations

The Spacecraft Control and Operations System 2 (SCOSII) is the new generation of Mission Control Systems (MCS) to be used at ESOC. The system is generic because it offers a collection of standard functions configured through a database upon which a dedicated MCS is established for a given mission. An integral component of SCOSII is the support of a dedicated Operations Language (OL). The spacecraft operation engineers edit, test, validate, and install OL scripts as part of the configuration of the system with, e.g., expressions for computing derived parameters and procedures for performing flight operations, all without involvement of software support engineers. A layered approach has been adopted for the implementation centered around the explicit representation of a data model. The data model is object-oriented defining the structure of the objects in terms of attributes (data) and services (functions) which can be accessed by the OL. SCOSII supports the creation of a mission model. System elements as, e.g., a gyro are explicit, as are the attributes which described them and the services they provide. The data model driven approach makes it possible to take immediate advantage of this higher-level of abstraction, without requiring expansion of the language. This article describes the background and context leading to the OL, concepts, language facilities, implementation, status and conclusions found so far.

Baldi, Andrea↗

XMM instrument on-board software maintenance concept

While the pre-launch responsibility for the production, validation and maintenance of instrument on-board software traditionally lies with the experimenter, the post-launch maintenance has been the subject of ad hoc arrangements with the responsibility shared to different extent between the experimenter, ESTEC and ESOC. This paper summarizes the overall design and development of the instruments on-board software for the XMM satellite, and describes the concept adopted for the maintenance of such software post-launch. The paper will also outline the on-board software maintenance and validation facilities and the expected advantages to be gained by the proposed strategy. Conclusions with respect to adequacy of this approach will be presented as well as recommendations for future instrument on-board software developments.

Peccia, N.↗

A new communication protocol family for a distributed spacecraft control system

In this paper we describe the concepts behind and architecture of a communication protocol family, which was designed to fulfill the communication requirements of ESOC's new distributed spacecraft control system SCOS 2. A distributed spacecraft control system needs a data delivery subsystem to be used for telemetry (TLM) distribution, telecommand (TLC) dispatch and inter-application communication, characterized by the following properties: reliability, so that any operational workstation is guaranteed to receive the data it needs to accomplish its role; efficiency, so that the telemetry distribution, even for missions with high telemetry rates, does not cause a degradation of the overall control system performance; scalability, so that the network is not the bottleneck both in terms of bandwidth and reconfiguration; flexibility, so that it can be efficiently used in many different situations. The new protocol family which satisfies the above requirements is built on top of widely used communication protocols (UDP and TCP), provides reliable point-to-point and broadcast communication (UDP+) and is implemented in C++. Reliability is achieved using a retransmission mechanism based on a sequence numbering scheme. Such a scheme allows to have cost-effective performances compared to the traditional protocols, because retransmission is only triggered by applications which explicitly need reliability. This flexibility enables applications with different profiles to take advantage of the available protocols, so that the best rate between sped and reliability can be achieved case by case.

Baldi, Andrea↗

Packet utilisation definitions for the ESA XMM mission

XMM, ESA's X-Ray Multi-Mirror satellite, due for launch at the end of 1999 will be the first ESA scientific spacecraft to implement the ESA packet telecommand and telemetry standards and will be the first ESOC-controlled science mission to take advantage of the new flight control system infrastructure development (based on object-oriented design and distributed-system architecture) due for deployment in 1995. The implementation of the packet standards is well defined at packet transport level. However, the standard relevant to the application level (the ESA Packet Utilization Standard) covers a wide range of on-board 'services' applicable in varying degrees to the needs of XMM. In defining which parts of the ESA PUS to implement, the XMM project first considered the mission objectives and the derived operations concept and went on to identify a minimum set of packet definitions compatible with these aspects. This paper sets the scene as above and then describes the services needed for XMM and the telecommand and telemetry packet types necessary to support each service.

Nye, H. R.↗

Utilizing inheritance in requirements engineering

The scope of this paper is the utilization of inheritance for requirements specification, i.e., the tasks of analyzing and modeling the domain, as well as forming and defining requirements. Our approach and the tool supporting it are named RETH (Requirements Engineering Through Hypertext). Actually, RETH uses a combination of various technologies, including object-oriented approaches and artificial intelligence (in particular frames). We do not attempt to exclude or replace formal representations, but try to complement and provide means for gradually developing them. Among others, RETH has been applied in the CERN (Conseil Europeen pour la Rechereche Nucleaire) Cortex project. While it would be impossible to explain this project in detail here, it should be sufficient to know that it deals with a generic distributed control system. Since this project is not finished yet, it is difficult to state its size precisely. In order to give an idea, its final goal is to substitute the many existing similar control systems at CERN by this generic approach. Currently, RETH is also tested using real-world requirements for the Pastel Mission Planning System at ESOC in Darmstadt. First, we outline how hypertext is integrated into a frame system in our approach. Moreover, the usefulness of inheritance is demonstrated as performed by the tool RETH. We then summarize our experiences of utilizing inheritance in the Cortex project. Lastly, RETH will be related to existing work.

Kaindl, Hermann↗

Quality and Control of Water Vapor Winds

Water vapor imagery from the geostationary satellites such as GOES, Meteosat, and GMS provides synoptic views of dynamical events on a continual basis. Because the imagery represents a non-linear combination of mid- and upper-tropospheric thermodynamic parameters (three-dimensional variations in temperature and humidity), video loops of these image products provide enlightening views of regional flow fields, the movement of tropical and extratropical storm systems, the transfer of moisture between hemispheres and from the tropics to the mid- latitudes, and the dominance of high pressure systems over particular regions of the Earth. Despite the obvious larger scale features, the water vapor imagery contains significant image variability down to the single 8 km GOES pixel. These features can be quantitatively identified and tracked from one time to the next using various image processing techniques. Merrill et al. (1991), Hayden and Schmidt (1992), and Laurent (1993) have documented the operational procedures and capabilities of NOAA and ESOC to produce cloud and water vapor winds. These techniques employ standard correlation and template matching approaches to wind tracking and use qualitative and quantitative procedures to eliminate bad wind vectors from the wind data set. Techniques have also been developed to improve the quality of the operational winds though robust editing procedures (Hayden and Veldon 1991). These quality and control approaches have limitations, are often subjective, and constrain wind variability to be consistent with model derived wind fields. This paper describes research focused on the refinement of objective quality and control parameters for water vapor wind vector data sets. New quality and control measures are developed and employed to provide a more robust wind data set for climate analysis, data assimilation studies, as well as operational weather forecasting. The parameters are applicable to cloud-tracked winds as well with minor modifications. The improvement in winds through use of these new quality and control parameters is measured without the use of rawinsonde or modeled wind field data and compared with other approaches.

Jedlovec, Gary J.↗

The XML approach to implementing space link extension service management

A feasibility study has been conducted at JPL, ESOC, and ISAS to assess the possible applications of the eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) capabilities to the implementation of the CCSDS Space Link Extension (SLE) Service Management function.

Space Linki Extension (SLE) eXtensible Markup Lang↗

Deployment of the MARSIS Radar Antennas On-Board Mars Express

On the first European planetary mission, the deployment of the two 20-meter long MARSIS antennas onboard the ESA Mars Express spacecraft has represented an unprecedented technological challenge, in the middle of a successful science mission. While Mars Express was already performing regular observations at Mars, a complex process has been performed on Earth, involving the ESA Project, coordination between ESA, NASA and ASI, the Mars Science community, the spacecraft manufacturer EADS Astrium and the Mission Control Centre at ESOC. This paper describes the steps that led from an initial nogo in 2004 to deployment one year later, as well as the conditions and difficulties encountered during the actual deployment. It provides insights in the technical and managerial processes that made it a success, and analyses the rationale behind the decisions.

deployment↗

Cluster: Mission Overview and End-of-Life Analysis

The Cluster mission is part of the scientific programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) and its purpose is the analysis of the Earth's magnetosphere. The Cluster project consists of four satellites. The selected polar orbit has a shape of 4.0 and 19.2 Re which is required for performing measurements near the cusp and the tail of the magnetosphere. When crossing these regions the satellites form a constellation which in most of the cases so far has been a regular tetrahedron. The satellite operations are carried out by the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) at Darmstadt, Germany. The paper outlines the future orbit evolution and the envisaged operations from a Flight Dynamics point of view. In addition a brief summary of the LEOP and routine operations is included beforehand.

Pallaschke, S.↗

Flight Dynamics Performances of the MetOp A Satellite during the First Months of Operations

The 19th of October 2006 at 16:28 UTC the first MetOp satellite (MetOp A) was successfully launched from the Baykonur cosmodrome by a Soyuz/Fregat launcher. After only three days of LEOP operations, performed by ESOC, the satellite was handed over to EUMETSAT, who is since then taking care of all satellite operations. MetOp A is the first European operational satellite for meteorology flying in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO), all previous satellites operated by EUMETSAT, belonging to the METEOSAT family, being located in the Geo-stationary orbit. To ensure safe operations for a LEO satellite accurate and continuous commanding from ground of the on-board AOCS is required. That makes the operational transition at the end of the LEOP quite challenging, as the continuity of the Flight Dynamics operations is to be maintained. That means that the main functions of the Flight Dynamics have to be fully validated on-flight during the LEOP, before taking over the operational responsibility on the spacecraft, and continuously monitored during the entire mission. Due to the nature of a meteorological operational mission, very stringent requirements in terms of overall service availability (99 % of the collected data), timeliness of processing of the observation data (3 hours after sensing) and accuracy of the geo-location of the meteorological products (1 km) are to be fulfilled. That translates in tight requirements imposed to the Flight Dynamics facility (FDF) in terms of accuracy, timeliness and availability of the generated orbit and clock solutions; a detailed monitoring of the quality of these products is thus mandatory. Besides, being the accuracy of the image geo-location strongly related with the pointing performance of the platform and with the on-board timing stability, monitoring from ground of the behaviour of the on-board sensors and clock is needed. This paper presents an overview of the Flight Dynamics operations performed during the different phases of the MetOp A mission up to routine. The activities performed to validate all the Flight Dynamics functions, characterize the behaviour of the satellite and monitor the performances of the Flight Dynamics facility will be highlighted. The MetOp Flight Dynamics Operations team is led by Anders Meier Soerensen and composed by Pier Luigi Righetti, Francisco Sancho, Antimo Damiano and David Lazaro. The team is supported by Hilda Meixner, responsible for all Flight Dynamics validation activities.

Righetti, Pier Luigi↗

Analysis of Envisat Orbit Maintenance Strategies to Improve/Increase Envisat ASAR Interferometry Opportunities

The biggest and most advanced Earth Observation Satellite in-orbit, developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and its member states, is Envisat. It was launched on March 1, 2002 by an Ariane V from French Guyana and holds a total of 10 multi-disciplinary Earth observation instruments, among which an Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR). The ASAR user community requested the Flight Dynamics division of the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) to investigate how the orbit control maintenance strategy for Envisat could be changed to optimize ASAR interferometry opportunities overall and in addition support the International Polar Year 2007/2008 initiative. The Polar Regions play a pivotal role in understanding our planet and our impact on it as they are recognized as sensitive barometers of environmental change. One of the main themes of the International Polar Year 2007/2008 is therefore the study of Earth s changing ice and snow, and its impact on our planet and our lives. Naturally, ESA would like to support this very important initiative. This paper presents the investigations that have been conducted to support these requests in the best possible way. It discusses the orbit maintenance strategy that has been in place since its launch, ensuring the actual orbit to be within 1 km of a so-called reference orbit, and presents the new orbit maintenance strategy that is aimed at improving/increasing the opportunities for Envisat ASAR interferometry, while preserving the fuel on board the spacecraft. The hydrazine on-board Envisat happens to be a precious resource as only approximately 300 kg of it was available at launch, like ERS-2. The difference being however that the mass of Envisat is approximately 3.2 times that of ERS-2.

Kuijper, D.↗

Mars Express Interplanetary Navigation from Launch to Mars Orbit Insertion: The JPL Experience

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) played a significant role in supporting the safe arrival of the European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express (MEX) orbiter to Mars on 25 December 2003. MEX mission is an international collaboration between member nations of the ESA and NASA, where NASA is supporting partner. JPL's involvement included providing commanding and tracking service with JPL's Deep Space Network (DSN), in addition to navigation assurance. The collaborative navigation effort between European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) and JPL is the first since ESA's last deep space mission, Giotto, and began many years before the MEX launch. This paper discusses the navigational experience during the cruise and final approach phase of the mission from JPL's perspective. Topics include technical challenges such as orbit determination using non-DSN tracking data and media calibrations, and modeling of spacecraft physical properties for accurate representation of non-gravitational dynamics. Also mentioned in this paper is preparation and usage of DSN Delta Differential Oneway Range ((Delta)DOR) measurements, a key element to the accuracy of the orbit determination.

Deep Space Network (DSN)↗

Multi-sensor Observations of a High-velocity Fireball over the South Atlantic on 2026 April 1

A high-velocity fireball was detected over the South Atlantic (41.9°S, 54.7°W) on 2026 April 1 at 02:13:14 UTC by U.S. Government (USG) sensors, with peak brightness at 90.5 km altitude. The event was well-observed from geostationary orbit by two civilian lightning imagers with near-orthogonal geometry, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-East Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) and the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites Meteosat Third Generation Imager 1 Lightning Imager, and it produced low-frequency acoustic signatures. The GLM measured a total radiated energy of 2.4 × 10 10 J, corresponding to a calculated impact energy of 0.086 kt TNT equivalent. Stereoscopic triangulation of the imager tracks yields an independent pre-atmospheric velocity of ~57 km s −1 , some 18% below the USG-reported value. Because orbital provenance is acutely sensitive to the entry velocity, whose reported uncertainty could be substantial, this discrepancy is notable. We document the multi-sensor record and identify the analysis required to assess provenance, which a subsequent study will present.

Silber, Elizabeth Allaryce [Sandia National Lab. (↗