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The DEIMOS-2 mission, launched in June 2014 and currently carrying out routine operations, is aimed at operating an agile small satellite for high-resolution Earth Observation applications. The spacecraft can be steered to accurately point the payload up to 45° off-nadir. The platform agility makes mission planning a complex optimization problem, which is cumbersome for human operators. Automation emerges as a key enabler for the mission planning and exploitation process. This paper presents the "Capacity Analysis and Mission Planning Tool" developed by DEIMOS to produce feasible acquisition sequences from a set of user areas of interest. By feasible, we mean they do not overlap and they fulfil the platform constraints: attitude manoeuvring agility and stability requirements, on-board memory and downlink, power production and battery capacity. Besides the significant workflow enhancement obtained by the full automation of mission planning, the tool is also able to optimize the mission return by repeating the scheduling exercise and selecting the best-performing mission timeline. In addition, the tool can simulate the execution of user-defined sequences of spacecraft operations (i.e., mission timelines), thanks to a high-fidelity system simulator, and detect any possible resource conflict in terms of agility, power and memory.

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DEIMOS-2 is the new Very High Resolution Mission from Elecnor DEIMOS. The mission will be operated using the gs4EO flight operations software. The gs4EO state-of-theart product family is the result of the know-how gathered by DEIMOS in more than a decade of work for the European Space Agency for Earth Observation. gs4EO flight operations software has been designed according to the following main drivers:• Operations automation, enabling the complete handling of all the S/C operations with the minimum number of operators and maintenance costs. Nominal operations are automated with no need of operator intervention leading to minimization of operation costs,• Heavy use of virtualization technologies to simplify ground segment deployment and maintenance and to minimize ground segment deployment and maintenance costs • Secure access to flight operations functions from remote sites, ensuring no unauthorized access to spacecraft telemetry and commanding functions (encryption and command authentication) occurs. Exploitation of wide spread secured web technologies will allow distributed flight operations.• Quick response to emergency operations, allowing reprogramming the satellite operations in a very short time, even changing the on-board operations within the same orbit (e.g. to schedule an emergency acquisition and to download it in the same orbit).• Deployment flexibility, allowing installing the ground systems in different locations and using different sets of ground stations, both for spacecraft monitoring and control and payload data reception. It allows to install independent spacecraft control or payload data processing systems or even individual facilities (e.g. mission planning).• Expandability. gs4EO is a modular system allowing an easy adaptation of its capabilities to future needs (e.g. collaboration with other satellite service providers).• Based on open platforms that minimize licensing costs and facilitate interoperability and maintainability.• Maximize interoperability, aligning with international standards whenever possible.gs4EO flight operations software covers the complete range of functionality needed to monitor and control the spacecraft and the ground station infrastructure. In summary, the gs4EO flight operations software provides an innovative approach for low cost Earth Observation missions, where operations costs are greatly reduced by a heavy use of the automation spacecraft operations and the provision of a flexible virtualized infrastructure that facilitates its deployment and maintainability.

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