Mission Planning and Payload Data Systems

VEGA's Mission Planning and Payload Data Systems (MPPDS) capability includes developing and maintainning Space Planning and Scheduling Systems and Payload Data Systems.

As space systems become more complex, so the need for automatic planning tools to assist the operations staff are required. Satellite and ground segment control today can involve the generation of several thousand telecommands or instructions every day. Automatic Mission Planning tools, which prepare the sequences of instructions to be provided to the Mission Control System, are essential to reduce operations costs.

These MPS take satellite usage requests as input and schedule the operations of the satellite within the mission and satellite constraints such as ground station visibility, on-board power, on-board data management etc. The output of the mission planning tool is a detailed time-line of instructions for the spacecraft and the ground stations.

VEGA has an extensive track record in providing MPPDS, and has developed several projects for ESA, including:

Development of automated Mission Planning Systems (MPS). This is based on the use of a mission planning kernel, the Enhanced Kernel Library for Operational Planning Systems (EKLOPS).

EKLOPS-based Mission Planning Systems (MPS) are currently supporting the daily operations of:

Envisat (since 2002)
Mars Express (since 2003)
Venus Express (since 2005)
Development of the Mission Planning Systems for several missions, including: ERS-1, ERS-2, Pastel, Envisat, Mars-Express, and Venus-Express, and is now developing the planning and scheduling system for the ESA Tracking Network (ESTRACK).
Maintaining the ALOS Data European Node (ADEN), which was developed by a VEGA led consortium. ALOS is the ‘Advance Land Orbiting Satellite’ of the Japan Aerospace exploration Agency (JAXA). ADEN manages the huge amounts of data produced by an Earth Observation satellite. It provides acquisition, secure storage and retrieval facilities, and allows users to order existing and future data products. It is a distributed computer system serving users across Europe and Africa.