ADAPTING AN OPEN-ARCHITECURE MISSION OPERATIONS SYSTEM FOR A LUNAR ROVER MISSION

摘要

The Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory (HSFL) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa under a NASA grant is developing a comprehensive open-architecture space mission operations system (COSMOS) designed particularly to provide operations support for multiple small spacecraft. HSFL was recently on a Canadian-led team to perform a conceptual study for the Canadian Space Agency on the feasibility of doing a micro-rover (30 kg) mission to the Moon for no more than $100 million (Canadian). This mission was called the Canadian American British Lunar Explorer (CABLE) mission. As part of the CABLE mission plan, the Inter-Stage Adapter that is used to provide support for the lander during launch and also propellant for following propulsive burns, after separation becomes a cis-lunar spacecraft called ISAS to provide measurements of the environment in cis-lunar space. This paper examines the adaption of the COSMOS system to provide operations support for the CABLE mission. It was determined during the study that not only is COSMOS suitable for supporting operations for the lander spacecraft and ISAS, it could also provide operations support for the lunar rover. For monitor and control of the two spacecraft and rover we are using the Mission Operations Support Tool (MOST) of COSMOS, This tool, which is based on the LUNOPS tool developed for the Clementine lunar mission in 1994, also provides monitoring of the mission trajectories, including the descent and landing on the Moon. Working prototypes of MOST to demonstrate these capabilities were completed for the CSA study. To further demonstrate the suitability of COSMOS and MOST to support lunar operations, MOST was used in a student project at the University of Hawaii at Manoa to provide operations for a simulated Mars lander and rover mission. It is planned to use a version of the CABLE MOST software to assist the second field deployment of the CSA Mars Methane Mission (MMM) in a terrestrial analogue environment. This will employ the Kapvik micro-rover to conduct field-investigations simulating a remote Mars mission in serpentinite geology relevant to Mars to verify the methodologies and instrumentation for the in-situ search for methane sources and relevant microbial bio signatures related to methanogens.