Testing and validation of orbital operations plansfor the MESSENGER mission

摘要

Launched in 2004, the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft continues on its journey to become, in 2011, the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury. The goal of MESSENGER's one-year orbital mission is to answer several key questions about the structure and history of Mercury and its environment. The science and mission operations teams are testing a concept of operations to use the instrument payload most efficiently and to achieve full mission success. To ensure that all essential observations are obtained and to allow for contingencies, an advance science planning (ASP) effort will develop the full yearlong mission baseline plan prior to orbit insertion. To ensure that the plan can be adapted in response to unexpected events over time, an adjusted baseline plan will be regenerated in the ASP process every five weeks during the actual orbital mission. The near-term science planning (NTSP) activity converts weeklong portions of the baseline plan into executable commands to conduct the orchestrated observations. A feedback process from NTSP to ASP will be used to ensure that the baseline observing plan accounts for and reschedules any unsuccessful observations. A testing and validation plan has been developed for the processes and software that underlie both advance and near-term science planning.