The Mission Planning System for the Firebird Spacecraft Constellation

Kurzfassung

The Firebird mission comprises the two spacecraft TET (launched July 22nd 2012) and BIROS (launch foreseen for May 25th 2016), both carrying a combined infrared-optical camera system as primary payload as well as several additional hard- and software experiments. Our Mission Planning team at the German Space Operations Center (GSOC) is responsible for generating conflict-free timelines for commanding payload and so-called background sequence operations for both spacecraft in accordance with all given spacecraft and ground-related constraints and customer requirements. Therefore, a Mission Planning system has been prepared and is continuously developed further with continuously changing space segment capabilities throughout the different project phases. The paper at hand describes the main components and their set-up, e.g. the semi-automated planning tools and the newly implemented interactive order interface for the customers. Furthermore, the decision to which extent a combined system is set up for both spacecraft as well as the advantages of being able to rely on a generic, configurable tool suite, modeling language and scheduling algorithm assembly are discussed.