The Operations Development Challenge a balance of cost and risk

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The Operations Development Challenge - a balance
of cost and risk

• Tony Hillman
• MacDonald, Dettwiler Associates Ltd.

Presentation prepared for the SpaceOps 2004
Conference May 17-21, Montreal, Canada
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Contents

• Introduction
• what is operations development, and why is this
  topic worth consideration?
• Operations Development as a component of System
  Development
• project examples of operations development scope,
  key activities in the major system development
  and operations phases, cost drivers, challenges,
  and risk items
• Development practices with cost and risk
  reduction potential
• during concept and requirements definition
• during preliminary and detailed design and
  implementation
• during system integrationand flight operations
• Priorities and criteria for launch readiness
• Some cost and schedule problem mitigation
  measures
• Summary Conclusions and Recommendations

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What is Operations Development for a space system
project?

• A branch of the system engineering activity on
  the project
• Generally concerns planning and preparation for
  flight operations
• planning - ops concept document, preparation of
  plans for each mission phase, preparation of
  operations handbook, ...
• analysis - e.g., orbit acquisition and
  maintenance strategies, .
• preparation of staff and facilities - training,
  ops inputs to ground segment development, ops
  integration, exercises, ...
• preparation of operations infrastructure -
  procedures, databases, ...
• execution/support of operations, e.g., through
  LEOP and system commissioning
• management - system operations, pre-launch
  planning and preparation, operations contractors,
  network agencies,...
• Scope clearly depends on the overall program
  scope and on the system delivery requirements
• delivery in-orbit has greater operations
  development scope than delivery pre-launch

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Typical Operations Development Activities and
Planning
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What influences Operations Development costs?

• System and Project Characteristics
• System level operations requirements
• System size and complexity
• Extent of new development of system components
• Degree of automation
• System operation maintenance and support concept
• Customer needs for training and documentation
• Organisational transition through development
  phases
• Operations experience in development team
• Budgetary constraints
• Project Risks
• Unplanned changes to technical baselines and
  project schedules
• System integration problems impacting pre-flight
  operations preparation
• In-orbit anomalies and commissioning teething
  troubles delaying transition to routine phase
  operations

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Some Operations Development Challenges

• Continual programmatic pressure to find ways to
  reduce development and through-life operations
  costs
• How to get overall project attention for mission
  support planning, such as provision for flight
  software maintenance over the mission lifetime,
  early enough in development
• How to co-ordinate operations development across
  a project comprising multi-organisational,
  multi-contractor entities (sometimes fiefdoms!)
• How to expose operations scope sufficiently early
  in development - to avoid the forgot its ,
  workarounds, and cost growth
• How to grow and nurture a development team with
  the necessary experience and skills
• How to conduct the final operations preparation
  campaign in the face of ground segment system
  builds with incremental functionality and
  maturity
• How to introduce a new mission into a support
  infrastructure without operational impact to an
  existing mission or missions

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Development Practices - overall

• Regard operations development as a part of the
  overall system engineering, and later, the system
  integration on the project
• can act as a multi-disciplinary gluing function
  during development
• exploit synergies between pre-launch system
  integration test and preparation for flight
  operations
• Build the cross-organisational, cross-contractual
  needs of operations development into the overall
  project plan and subcontract statements of work
• Establish and maintain a system operations cost
  model
• prepare early in development and maintain as the
  design evolves
• use as a vehicle to discuss status with
  stakeholders and explore cost savings options
• In the build of operations development team,
  consider
• participation of experienced personnel from the
  eventual operations and maintenance team -
  facilitates ops team training and injects
  experience for the new mission
• participation of selected personnel becoming free
  from development tasks -facilitates transfer of
  development knowledge to operations

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Development Practices - concept and requirements
definition

• Formulate and document operations concept early
  in development and participate in requirements
  definition and evaluation of system components
• can use as Ops Concept Document as a precursor to
  operations plans
• include metrics for operations performance - from
  system requirements or system design allocation
  to operations
• document key operations characteristics and
  requirements of system components, in particular
  the driving items
• propagate the operations concept in the system
  design
• Establish working relationships with in-house and
  supplier organisations
• define and agree operations deliverables (and
  milestones) for all parties
• identify operations points of contact within each
  organisation and an interchange mechanism, e.g.,
  operations working group forum, for coordination
  through the project
• Operations Development planning
• identify risk areas, such as uncertainties in
  procedures development, and factor mitigation
  approaches into plan
• define operations development review milestones
  for stakeholder and subject expert review of
  documentation and development status, using
  overall project review milestones, e.g., system
  CDR, and some special ops reviews

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Development Practices - design and implementation

• Feed operations needs, expertise, and
  lessons-learned into system and component design
• reduces chance of fix it later costs
• achieved through operations staff (development
  and preferably also operations team)
  participation in design reviews, and selected
  design and development activities
• Work operations plans in parallel with system
  design
• to level necessary to judge design is complete
• forms a basis for operations team staffing
  planning and procedures development
• Develop and focus supplier contributions to
  spacecraft operations handbook, ground segment
  operations maintenance manuals, and training
  preparation
• need these materials in good shape to avoid
  difficulties and over-runs in procedures
  development and operations integration
• operations working group can be useful vehicle
  for coordination
• operations needs and priorities can easily get
  lost where there are supplier hardware delivery
  challenges!

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Development Practices - system integration and
flight operations

• Consider integration planning early in
  development and build cost saving measures into
  overall project plan, e.g.,
• coordinate TM/TC database and Operations Database
  development, testing and operations tuning
  between spacecraft suppliers, ground control
  system suppliers, and operations development, and
  operations teams
• identify opportunities for pre-launch validation
  with the spacecraft, and maximise synergies
  between spacecraft AIT needs and operations
  development needs
• Reduce impacts of internal handovers of
  integration responsibilities as far as possible,
  avoiding inefficiencies of parallel staffing and
  multiple knowledge transfers between development
  groups
• get operations staff involved in ground segment
  integration and test
• allow for period of Ground Segment usage
  testing, for operations preparation, prior to
  acceptance
• make the Ground Segment formal testing also serve
  an Operations purpose to signify readiness to
  start the pre-launch simulation campaign
• Use feedback from flight operations
• to tune procedures, address staff assignment and
  training issues, and to define system
  enhancements, for improved efficiency
• establishment and monitoring of system operations
  performance metrics, including costs, helps here

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Priorities and Criteria for Launch Readiness (1)

• Ground Segment and Operations qualified for LEOP
  and commissioning operations, and preferably all
  mission phases
• Operations Readiness Review (ORR)
  agenda/checklist to cover
• completion of acceptance testing, external
  interface testing, end-to-end system testing
• completion of verification activities,
  particularly related to satellite control
• operations procedures and databases validated and
  approved
• ground system configurations, satellite launch
  configuration, launch-day loads, etc., defined,
  documented in procedures
• reference design and user documentation approved
  and available for use to support mission, e.g.,
  in anomaly investigations
• mission simulation campaign complete, has
  included LEOP scenarios involving all TTC sites
• training and certification program for the
  Operations Team has been completed
• support arrangements are in place for
  supplementary satellite system personnel,
  subsystem specialists, and ground segment
  personnel for LEOP and commissioning
• plan for transition of operations direction and
  system management to Routine Phase provisions is
  in place

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Priorities and Criteria for Launch Readiness (2)

• ORR agenda/checklist (continued)
• External TTC network for LEOP and emergency
  support is ready
• Ground Segment to Satellite testing at the
  Launch-Site has been completed
• Ground Segment is ready to participate with the
  Launch-Site in launch count-down rehearsal
• remaining Ground Segment/Operations activities
  and actions prior to launch defined and agreed,
  and not expected to preclude a launch decision
• Mission risk, and in particular spacecraft
  safety, is the primary concern for Operations
  Development
• as a minimum the criteria need to address
  readiness for spacecraft control through LEOP and
  steady state operations in commissioning,
  including routine spacecraft maintenance
  activities, and safing and contingency recovery
  provisions
• lack of preparedness in other areas will likely
  delay the transition to the Routine Phase, or
  reduce initial operations capabilities.

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What can be done if the cost and schedule going
gets tough?- these days it always tends to be
tough!
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Summary conclusions and recommendations

• Best to consider and plan Operations Development
  is an integral component of the overall system
  development in the deployment of a space system
• exploit system glue function features of Ops
  Development to help system engineering of
  interfaces and end-to-end performance, in to
  assist system requirements allocation and in the
  definition of the Ground Segment tools
• use Operations Development as a focus for system
  integration
• Many cost savings measures need to be built into
  the project plan in the early phases
• operations concept, system architecture choices
• exploit synergies between needs of operations
  preparation, spacecraft AIT, and Ground Segment
  IT
• engage the eventual operators in development
  activities and as part of the Ops Development
  team where feasible
• Despite increasing focus on fiscal constraints,
  mission risk, and in particular spacecraft
  safety, is the primary concern for Operations
  Development
• cant (shouldnt?) compromise fundamental
  readiness criteria related to spacecraft
  operations
• some readiness criteria relating to Routine Phase
  system operations can be deferred with the risk
  of post launch delays, and probably extra costs,
  before a full operations capability can be
  achieved