Portable Satellite Simulator PSS

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Planning and Management of ESTRACK Services
Marc Niézette, Anite Martin Götzelmann, Anite
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Co-Author / Study Team

• Anite Study Team
• Martin Götzelmann - Study Manager
• Michael Theurich
• Ian Shaw
• Marc Niézette
• ESOC Study Team
• Thomas Beck Head of ESOC/OPS-ONF and Study
  Technical Officer
• Yves Doat - Head of ESOC/OPS-GIB
• Alejandro Pena
• Gerhard Theis

3
Overview

• ESTRACK Network and its evolution
• ESTRACK Management System (EMS)
• EMS Planner
• EMS Schedule Generator
• EMS Coordination System
• Conclusion and Future Work

4
ESTRACK Network

• Comprises all the ESA facilities deployed around
  the world in order to provide the tracking
  services required by the Agency
• Includes ground stations, communications and
  control facilities

5
ESTRACK Evolution

• Yesterday
• Ground stations were almost exclusively dedicated
  to a given ESA mission
• Ground stations were operated locally
• Today
• ESTRACK is constantly growing in size, capability
  and complexity
• Ground stations are remotely operated on a
  routine basis
• Ground stations are supporting multiple missions,
  within and outside ESA
• Users requests are evolving from direct request
  of specific facilities to more generic tracking
  service requirements
• Tomorrow
• The level of cross-support will increase
• The load of the network will continue to grow
• A new network management and scheduling
  operational concept is required

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ESTRACK Management System
EMS
ESTRACK Coordination System
PLANNING PRODUCTS
Monitoring of plan execution and coordination of
facilities
EMS Planner
Planning of ESTRACK utilisation
EMS Schedule Generator
Generation of schedules for execution by
facilities
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EMS Interfaces
Flight Dynamics
EMS User
Mission Control System
Mission Planning
NCTRS
Format Converter
ESTRACK Ground Station
External Provider (scheduling office)
Communications Network Management
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EMS Planner Mission Agreement
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EMS Planner Standing Orders

• One pass from AOS to LOS of a minimum duration
  per orbit (e.g. Envisat)
• Maximum continuous contact per orbit, with
  mandatory contact in a time period between two
  events specified for each orbit, and minimum
  hand-over duration (e.g. XMM, INTG)
• Maximum/Minimum total contact duration and number
  of passes within a period, with minimum pass
  duration (e.g. SMART-1)
• Maximum coverage for a constellation in case of
  conflict between several S/C for the visibility
  of the same GS, the duration of the contact with
  the first S/C visible from the GS is maximized
  (e.g. CLUSTER)
• Etc.

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EMS Planner Planning Policies

• At least one standing order must be implemented
  for each mission and each user service
• The ESA network should be used to saturation for
  ESA missions
• No global optimisation is required
• No alternative solutions are proposed to the user
• The planning process shall maximise the coverage
  by each station and minimise the number of
  station handover activities in the plan
• If no solution can be found the operator can
• enable degraded service definitions / standing
  order pairs
• modify constraints to find a solution

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EMS Planner Timeline
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EMS Schedule Generator

• Generation driven by the ESTRACK Management Plan
  (EMP), including Operational Service Sessions
  generated at planning
• All required variable information taken from EMP
• Static information contained in Schedule
  Templates
• One Schedule per Operational Service Session
• Single master schedule controlling load and
  execution of individual schedules and running on
  EMS
• Additional readable schedule overview (Timeline
  for Operations)
• No schedules generated for External Providers

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ESTRACK Coordination System
MCS
FEATURES
Downloading of schedules
ESTRACK Coordination System
NCTRS
Planning Products
Monitoring of plan execution
Routine control of schedules
Ground Station
Coordination of facilities and the MCS for
special events (e.g. station hand over)
NMC
Schedule Generator
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Conclusion and Future Work

• A new network management and scheduling concept
  has been proposed
• The new concept introduces the ESTRACK Management
  System (EMS) as part of EGOS
• EMS is decomposed into three functional blocks
• Planning
• Schedule Generation
• Coordination
• The concept requires a formalisation of the
  mission requirements for each mission in mission
  agreements
• A User Requirements Document for EMS is currently
  been produced by the study team