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Automated Techniques for Routine Monitoring and Contingency Detection of LEO Spacecraft Operations

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Space Operations: Inspiring Humankind's Future

Abstract

The flight control teams of two low Earth orbit missions at EUMETSAT present an overview of the automated tools and methodologies being used to analyse and report on spacecraft health including trend analysis, data mining and outlier detection. A qualitative analysis of the techniques is provided based on in-flight experience, and proposals for future development of such toolsets are presented. This paper focuses on the experiences of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 and EPS MetOp flight control teams in using the EUMETSAT CHART framework, which allows engineers to define automated reports and perform ad hoc analysis on large data sets with multiple input sources. Arguments are also presented regarding whether or not it may be appropriate for future missions to consider applying some of these techniques directly on-board as an extension of the currently in-place FDIR mechanisms.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    From experience, the expertise, size and focus of both the Flight Control and Industrial Support is at its maximum shortly after launch and a shortage of resources for trend analysis and monitoring is less of an issue.

Abbreviations

CHART:

Component Health Analysis & Reporting Tool

EDAC:

Error Detection and Correction

EPS:

EUMETSAT Polar System

FCT:

Flight Control Team

FDIR:

Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery

GOME:

Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (an instrument aboard MetOp)

GNSS:

Global Navigation Satellite System

HKTM:

Housekeeping Telemetry

IASI:

Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (an instrument aboard MetOp)

LEO:

Low Earth Orbit

MCS:

Mission Control System

NANU:

Notice Advisory to NAVSTAR Users

NRT:

Near Real-Time

SLSTR:

Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (an instrument aboard Sentinel-3)

SRAL:

SAR Radar Altimeter (an instrument aboard Sentinel-3)

SVM:

Service Module (the platform components of MetOp, distinct from the Payload Module)

TM:

Telemetry

WODB:

Working Operational DataBase

References

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Acknowledgements

The authors extend their thanks to Mike Elson, Paul Raval, and the other members of the EUMETSAT TSS team for their support and hard work in developing the CHART toolset, and to the Data Analytics Team within the Advanced Mission Concepts Section of ESA ESOC for their cooperation and support in the initial stages of the EUMETSAT integration of novelty detection concepts into CHART. Ed Trollope would also like to thank Richard Dyer, for his work on the implementation of the EUMETSAT outlier detection algorithm, plus Nico Feldmann, Ry Evill and Jonathan Schulster for their support in the development of CHART-S3. The authors would also like to thank Helene Pasquier for her editorial support and advice, building on the SpaceOps 2018 conference paper by the same authors (Ref. [15]).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Flight Operations Department, EUMETSAT, 64293, Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany

    Ed Trollope, Richard Dyer, Tiago Francisco & James Miller

  2. Operations & Services to Users, Serco Services GmbH, 64293, Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany

    Mauro Pagan Griso

  3. Engineering Services, LSE Space GmbH, 64293, Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany

    Alessandro Argemandy

Authors
  1. Ed Trollope
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  2. Richard Dyer
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  3. Tiago Francisco
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  4. James Miller
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  5. Mauro Pagan Griso
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  6. Alessandro Argemandy
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ed Trollope .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Direction du Numérique, de l'exploitation et des Opérations, Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales—CNES, Toulouse, France

    Helene Pasquier

  2. Payload and Mission Operations, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, USA

    Craig A. Cruzen

  3. German Space Operations Center, DLR—German Aerospace Center, Wessling, Bayern, Germany

    Michael Schmidhuber

  4. NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Young H. Lee

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Trollope, E., Dyer, R., Francisco, T., Miller, J., Griso, M.P., Argemandy, A. (2019). Automated Techniques for Routine Monitoring and Contingency Detection of LEO Spacecraft Operations. In: Pasquier, H., Cruzen, C., Schmidhuber, M., Lee, Y. (eds) Space Operations: Inspiring Humankind's Future. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11536-4_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11536-4_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-11535-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-11536-4

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