BepiColombo is a mission to Mercury of the European Space Agency, in collaboration with the Japanese Space Agency, due to launch in July 2016. A spacecraft simulator is being developed by the European space industry for the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) to support the operations. An Agile software methodology, based on iterative and incremental reviews and frequent prototype versions called sprints, has been applied for the first time in the development of a simulator at ESOC. This paper analyses the benefits and the impact of such dynamic process from the Flight Control Team perspective. It also presents the key innovations introduced in the BepiColombo simulator and in particular the use of a generic payload model that can be customized directly by the Flight Control Teamto simulate the behaviour of the spacecraft's payloads. How this generic approach to payload modelling can help to reduce the simulator development cost while providing more flexibility to the operations team is also the subject of this paper.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.