SpaceOps 2006

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SpaceOps 2006

• WHO - Working Hours Operations
• for geostationary telecom satellites.

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Introduction

• In order to fulfill all operational activities
  linked to a geostationnary satellite and control
  station maintenance, a 24/7 availability of an
  operational team is required in the control
  station.
• Started in 2002, the Working Hours Operations
  Project purpose was to perform on orbit control
  operations of a geostationary telecom satellite
  with optimized resources, reducing operational
  costs.
• Our main driver
• Decrease the operational workload (Working
  Hours) and reduce the presence of operations
  team in the control centre.
• This presentation describes our experience in
  analysis, development and implementation of a
  satellite control system based on optimized
  alarms processing and operations automation.

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• Operational activities analysis

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Operational activities analysis

• To optimize spacecraft control operations, we
  started to analyze the whole operational activity
  necessary to operate a satellite based on a high
  level autonomy platform the Alcatel Alenia
  Space Spacebus 4000.
• To complete the study at spacecraft control
  segment level, we defined a typical ground
  control system architecture to analyse the
  activities undertaken by the ground facilities
  (spacecraft control centre, control station
  equipment) and combined ground/satellite
  operations.

• This analysis highlighted four activities which
  require a specific treatment to unload station
  operations and thus to reach the Working Hours
  goal

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Operational activities analysis

• ? Permanent monitoring of satellite and ground
  facilities, basically performed via a set of
  limits on telemetry or ground parameters.
• ? Failure detection and anomaly processing as
  soon as an anomaly is detected and can
  unfortunately occur in non business hours.
• ? Interfacing with telecom payload management
  this activity can be scheduled or asynchronous
  with respect to routine operation (customer
  request).
• ? Execution of planned operational procedures
  this activity consists of executing operational
  procedures already prepared and scheduled. Others
  (offline) activities revolving around the
  execution of the procedure, like the use of the
  orbital dynamics software prior to and after a
  manoeuvre, can be planned during business hours.

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• Solutions determination Implementation
• gt Permanent monitoring of satellite and ground
  facilities Failure detection and anomaly
  processing

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? Permanent monitoring of satellite and ground
facilities ? Failure detection and anomaly
processing

• Three kinds of alarms have been listed, based on
  our on orbit control operations experiences,
  lifetime support services and customers feed-back
  
• Transitional or temporary alarms,
• Alarms with no immediate human intervention,
• Alarms with immediate human intervention
• In addition, this analysis showed that
• in case of anomaly a lot of alarms are raised
  simultaneously due to the link between
  parameters,
• some parameters are monitored unconditionally in
  the same range whichever the satellite operating
  phase, and some others have a set of limits
  depending on satellite configuration (nominal or
  redundant equipment is operational) or satellite
  operating phase.

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? Permanent monitoring of satellite and ground
facilities ? Failure detection and anomaly
processing

• The analysis of the control center and satellite
  limits leads to request an advanced system of
  limits processing and alarms management based on
  a structured and multi-levels limits file for
  telemetry parameters.

The flowchart here after provides an example of
application
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? Permanent monitoring of satellite and ground
facilities ? Failure detection and anomaly
processing

• Starting from the new requirements, an impact
  analysis on the existing ALCATEL 9713 SCC (
  Satellite Control centre) product line has been
  performed, to identify the necessary
  modifications in the product evolution road-map.
• The monitoring functions have thus been adapted
  to work with the structured multi-level limits
  representation, including an editor to create,
  modify and display such limits models.

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? Permanent monitoring of satellite and ground
facilities ? Failure detection and anomaly
processing

• The alarm management tool was extended to offer
  the additional flexibility required by Working
  Hours Operations, and to interface smoothly with
  a commercial tool for GSM/SMS calls management.
• The system send a message which orients the
  on-duty controller regarding type and nature of
  the anomaly and contains at least the satellite
  name, code of the parameter initiating the
  reaction sequence, parameter short description,
  parameter value that exceeding the action limit,
  total number of alarms.
• An alarms database file has been built including
  set of criteria for all the necessary telemetry
  parameters with the following limits and
  characteristics
• Minimum and maximum Caution threshold Action
  threshold,
• Triggering occurrence,
• Validity condition,
• Filter value,
• Action/sequence of action.

•  This alarms database has been tested with the
  advanced limits processing and alarms management
  system of the control centre.

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• Solutions determination Implementation
• gt Permanent Interface with telecommunication
  payload management

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? Permanent Interface with telecom payload
management

• Two kinds of operations have been identified 
• Scheduled payload operations linked to mission
  customers requests
• Operations are generally already optimized with
  respect to operators and system availability.
• However operations preparation can be reduced (
  for instance with procedures taking into account
  the existing payload configuration).
• Asynchronous operations on an operating channel
  (gain adjustment) due to not scheduled mission
  requests or payload reconfiguration
  (contingencies, equipment anomaly/failure)
• Operations optimization depends on operations
  complexity, facilities used and personnel
  involved.
• The following approach has been performed in
  order to determine optimization axes
• Categorization of mission requests based on
  requests history from several satellite mission
  (gain adjustment, uplink carrier)
• Specification of necessary functionalities to
  manage the mission requests taking into account
  multi-missions (multi-users) requests and
  priority management with respect to satellite
  platform operations
• Specification of a remote telemetry tool to
  provide permanent payload telemetry information
  to the mission operators.

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? Permanent Interface with telecom payload
management

• Implementation Optimization of operations in
  the frame of payload management  
•  Scheduled mission operations preparation
• The inputs of Operational procedures in charge
  of generating the payload configuration change
  with respect to the mission request and the on
  board status, come directly from the payload
  management software implemented on SCC,
• This preparation process is now currently used
  for payload operations.
•  Asynchronous operations
• A Mission Management interface has been
  implemented between an Alcatel Alenia Space
  Mission Centre and Spacecraft Control Centre in
  order to transmit (bi-directional) payload
  telemetry to the mission team and sequence of
  command to the spacecraft based on customer
  requests.
• This system has been tested and qualified and is
  actually used for commercial spacecraft
  operations. This system is particularly adapted
  to secure the information transmission in case of
  complex payload and to reduce the operational
  workload.

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? Permanent Interface with telecom payload
management

• Remote telemetry tool for payload management
• A system of remote telemetry display for
  mission controller has been developed on the
  basis of existing Alcatel Alenia Space Control
  Centre product of monitoring and control.
• This system has been validated and now used in
  operational conditions allowing mission team to
  follow the payload configuration during In Orbit
  Tests phases.

Next is a typical payload dynamic display
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• Solutions determination Implementation
• gt Execution of planned operational procedures

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? Execution of planned operational procedures

• We have identified two axes to perform planned
  procedures with regards to optimization of
  operational tasks
• 1)  Lighten operations the controller available
  on station or on duty for the dedicated
  operations or on call, performs operations based
  on a reduced optimized set of operational
  procedures. In this case only the existing
  operational procedures need to be adapted with
  respect to the advanced limits processing and
  alarms management system . There is no additional
  specification for the control system.
• 2) Operations automation operations are
  scheduled and performed by on-ground automatisms.
  The controllers/engineers tasks are limited to
  operations preparation. This solution requests
  some operational procedures adaptations and
  evolutions of ground system (execution software,
  scheduler)

• Work Axis choice Taking into account the
  existing telecommunication operators organization
  and needs, we decided in a first step to
  implement solution 1 our customers mostly prefer
  to keep human resource on station 24/7 days and
  benefit of operations workload reduction to
  optimize their operational team size and
  organization with regard to satellite fleet
  management.

However, solution 2 remains the target and we
issued specifications for control system
evolution with respect to operations automation.
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? Execution of planned operational procedures

• Adaptation automated execution of operationnal
  procedures
• Analysis of routine operations has shown that in
  order to perform lighten operations, some
  operational procedure has to be reviewed like
  Eclipse monitoring to be fully compatible with
  the advanced limits processing.
• Transitions between operating modes generate some
  temporary alarms and we have to inhibit temporary
  the monitoring on these parameters prior the
  eclipse entry and to reactivate it just after the
  entry.

• A PROcedure eXecution software (PROX) has been
  developed at Control Centre level to execute
  procedures (defined with a procedure editor AAS
  PGE - Procedure Generation Environment software )
• This application manages transitions and obtains
  a full automation of procedure execution.

PROX is used to pilot procedure execution,
monitoring during and after execution, generate
reports and archive procedure steps results for
retrieval purpose. PROX performs automatically
the checked normally done by the controller and
send the command if the board is not at the
expected value.
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? Execution of planned operational procedures

• PROcedure eXecution software

• gt A PROX-on-Net WEB server application,
  allows procedures to be consulted with an
  internet browser by a remote user.

• gt PROX PROX-on-Net
• have been validated and are now used to operate
  commercial satellite and to lighten operations,
  even in case of critical operations phases as
  Launch Early Orbit Phase and In Orbit Tests.

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• Conclusion

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Conclusion

• From an industrial point of view, Alcatel
  Alenia Space prepares the future of spacecraft
  operations with operations automation
  specifications and tools are existing. Remains to
  persuade satellite operators companies themselves
  that the spacecraft safety is preserved in a full
  automated mode.
• From an operational point of view, the actual
  concern of main operators companies is to reduce
  the operational workload, but keeping their human
  resource organization on station 24/7days.
• Alcatel Alenia Space has developed and tested a
  complete operational environment and control
  system to perform lighten operations for
  geostationary satellite. Several operational
  products functionalities are now used to
  monitor control Alcatel Alenia Space
  geostationary satellite during their commercial
  lifetime, minimizing and optimizing the
  operational Working Hours and associated costs.
  This operational environment is also used for our
  back-up service offer provided to our customer.
• This can been done with regard to Alcatel Alenia
  Space internal organization promoting a very
  close cooperation between space segment
  components Spacebus 4000 new generation
  satellite, ground control systems and operational
  teams.