SMOS ESA/CNES operations: Multiplying two agencies' efforts

摘要

SMOS is the second ESA Earth Explorer mission, and was developed in collaboration with the French Space Agency, (CNES) and the Spanish Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnologico Industrial (CDTI). This collaborative approach continues in the operations phase: ESA is responsible for the overall mission operations, instrument and ground segment operations whereas CNES is responsible for the space segment operations including satellite platform and satellite operations ground segment (SOGS). The payload of SMOS consists of the Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS) instrument. The mission and payload design is such that the interactions and dependencies of MIRAS and the PROTEUS platform are highly reduced to power, time synchronisation, TM and TC routing, plus attitude and orbit control at platform side and some high level safety mechanisms. Both the payload and the platform implement their own independent sets of services. The paper presents the operational concept for the SMOS mission, and how it has evolved from the pre-launch concept into a matured one after more than 2 years into the mission. SMOS operations and success are linked to the merge of operational cultures of two Agencies, and this mixture of different mechanism, systems, procedures and organizations has demonstrated to be more productive than just the simple sum of its terms. The paper also gives some operational examples along the SMOS lifetime, and aims to extract some set of lessons learnt for future cooperation inter agencies.