2 research outputs found
The CONSERT operations planning process for the Rosetta mission
The COmet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radio wave Transmission (CONSERT / Rosetta) has been designed to sound the interior of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This instrument consists of two parts: one onboard Rosetta and the other one onboard Philae. A good CONSERT science measurement sequence requires joint operations of both spacecrafts in a relevant geometry. The geometric constraints to be fulfilled involve the position and the orientation of both Rosetta and Philae. At the moment of planning the post-landing and long-term science operations for Rosetta instruments, the actual comet shape and the landing location remained largely unknown. In addition, the necessity of combining operations of Rosetta spacecraft and Philae spacecraft makes the planning process for CON- SERT particularly complex. In this paper, we present the specific methods and tools we developed, in close collaboration with
the mission and the science operation teams for both Rosetta and Philae, to identify, rank and plan the operations for CONSERT science measurements. The presented methods could be applied to other missions involving joint operations between two platforms, on a complex shaped object
The CONSERT operations planning process for the Rosetta mission
In the scope of European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, the COmet Nucleus Sounding
Experiment by Radio wave Transmission (CONSERT) has sounded the deep interior of the
nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The CONSERT experiment main objective
was to image the interior of the comet nucleus.
This bi-static radar experiment with instrument units on-board both, the Rosetta main
spacecraft and its lander Philae, requires a specific geometric configuration to operate and
produce fruitful science data. Thus, these geometric constraints involve mainly the position
and orientation of Rosetta and Philae. From the operations planning point of view, the
mission constraints imposed observation slots to be defined far before their execution, while
the comet shape, spacecraft trajectories and landing site were still unknown. The CONSERT
instrument operations scheduling had to be designed jointly for Rosetta and Philae platforms,
based on different time scales and planning concepts.
We present the methods and tools we developed to cope with the complexity of this
planning process. These operations planning concepts allowed handling the complexity of
multiple platform operations and the lack of prior knowledge of the observed target