Mission Control (MS)

Mission control, otherwise known as flight operations, is an indispensable team of any space mission. Members participate in all stages of a mission’s life cycle ranging from the conceptual design, through to testing, operations, and end-of-life operations. Once the mission is in space the role of mission control is quite clear: track the spacecraft’s health, trajectory, and send commands whenever it is required. However, this job would not be possible in a vacuum. Prior engagement in the mission design allows controllers to provide input with respect to the space environment, flight dynamics, tracking and more.

During the design phase, controllers are involved in flight dynamics assessments, orbital debris mitigation research, flight mode specification, among other tasks. Once a launch is confirmed the team rehearses launch and early operation (LEOP) operations to be comfortable operating the spacecraft. Operators work long shifts during this period as it requires 24/7 monitoring for up to weeks as satellites settle into their final orbits, deploy appendages, and verify systems are in working order. Afterwards, nominal operations begin, where the now ”satellite operators” carry the goals of the mission through to completion while monitoring for any anomalies.

The tasks and responsibilities of mission control is grouped into the following 3 groups.

Group I: Mission Design

The design group focuses on helping other Subteams design the satellite, from the perspective of operators and their duties. Concrete goals are laid down in a further section. Given the advanced knowledge design members have of the satellite and the mission goal, they are also apt for the operations section. More on operations is specified below in the possible goals for the mission control team starting this academic year, but there is a noticeable distinction between mission design and mission operations.

Group II: Operations

The operation teams focuses on the interpretation of down-linked telemetry and in sending commands up to the satellite. In as such, they are the members of the team actually ”flying” the spacecraft. Operators include subject matter experts in the electrical, thermal, orbital and attitude dynamics, payload, and communications subsystems. These operators monitor their respective subsystems (one reasonable choice for operators could be the leads of those Subteams) and report to a flight director responsible for the entire mission and calls the final shots. Before any actual telemetry is received from the satellite, operators train mission segments for all sorts of nominal and off-nominal situations. Scenarios devised by technical experts ensure satellite operators are able to identify and resolve issues as quickly as possible. Operators also rehearse LEOP procedures to understand how to properly manage their time, how to acquire signal, and broadly be ready for the real deal.

Group III: Interface

The work of mission control would not be possible without a good interface. This is the way engineers and controllers actually interact with the satellite and its telemetry, therefore it is essential that this is clearly specified. There exists commercial software for this case, and for some use cases Ansys STK can be used, particularly for graphical displays of orbit position and ground track and in mission planning. However this may be insufficient and alternatives may be expensive. Thus, it may be necessary to design a custom interface. This carries many advantages, particularly when integrating the ground station input-output protocols. To achieve this, one or several engineers knowledgeable in software development are required. Besides making software for mission data management, the Interface team should work to integrate the ground station project and work to expand the ground station network.

Tasks & Responsibilities	g)     Researching hardware architectures. h)     Circuit design. i)       Circuit simulation. j)       PCB design. k)     PCB prototyping & assembly. l)       Testing and evaluation.
Roles	Design	Flight Dynamics Engineer, Orbital Debris Researcher, Computer Engineer, Environment Researcher
	Operation	Flight Director, COMMS Officer, AOCS Officer,               EPS Officer, Payload Officer, Thermal Officer
	Interface	Ground Station Engineer, Software Developer(s)