Dawn Science Planning, Operations and Archiving

Polanskey, C.; Joy, S. P.; Raymond, C. A.

doi:10.1007/s11214-011-9855-z

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Two other important aspects of the mission are the science planning, operations, and archiving processes described by Polanskey et al. () and the education and public outreach programs (McFadden et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dawn completes its mission at 4 Vesta

Russell

Raymond

Jaumann

et al. 2013

Meteorit & Planetary Scien

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Abstract-The Dawn mission was designed to test our hypothesis about the origin and evolution of the early solar system by visiting the largest differentiated basaltic asteroid, 4 Vesta, believed to be a survivor from the earliest times of rocky body formation. Observations from orbit show that Vesta is the parent body of the Howardite, Eucrite, Diogenite meteorites. Vesta has an iron core and a eucritic-diogenitic crust. Its surface is characterized by abundant impact craters but with no evident volcanic features. It has two ancient impact basins in the southern hemisphere that are associated with circum-planetary troughs. The northern hemisphere is the more heavily cratered and contains the oldest terrains. The surface of Vesta is diverse, with north-south and east-west dichotomies in the eucrite-to-diogenite ratio. Its surface contains both very bright and very dark material, and its color varies strongly from region to region. Both the mineralogical and the elemental compositions agree with that expected for the HED parent body. Significant OH or H may be present in the upper crust and the presence of pits in "fresh" craters is consistent with the devolatilization of the surface after a collision either brought to or tapped a source of water on Vesta. The presence of dark material on the surface of Vesta suggests efficient transport pathways for organic material, and the mixing of the dark material with the more pristine pyroxene explains the varying albedo across the surface. Vesta has proven to be a reliable witness to the formation of the solar system.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dawn completes its mission at 4 Vesta

Russell

Raymond

Jaumann

et al. 2013

Meteorit & Planetary Scien

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“…Functionally redundant data sets provide multiple observations of the same surface under different conditions. Observing in this manner protects against potential data losses while providing complementary datasets that improve the science return in the event that all data are successfully acquired and transmitted [1]. This strategy proved to be successful for the Dawn mission, reducing operations complexity by minimizing the need to retransmit data or reschedule lost observations.…”

Section: Mission Profilementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Dawn visited the two most massive objects in the main asteroid belt without the benefit of an earlier flyby. To mitigate the lack of gravity knowledge, the resulting mission profile selected a series of discrete science orbits at progressively lower altitudes that allowed the flight team to first measure the gravity at very high altitude where the spacecraft was insensitive to high-frequency gravitational perturbations and then subsequent science orbits incrementally lowered the altitude to allow further gravity field characterization and higher resolution data acquisition [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psyche Science Operations Concept: Maximize Reuse to Minimize Risk

Polanskey

Elkins-Tanton

Jaumann

et al. 2018

2018 SpaceOps Conference

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and the Psyche TeamIn January 2017, the Psyche mission concept was selected as the 14th in NASA's Discovery Program. The mission would explore the unique metallic asteroid, (16) Psyche, believed to be the exposed core of a larger planetesimal that was stripped of its rocky mantle through multiple collisions during the early formation of the solar system. While the scientific goals of the Psyche mission concept are novel, the approach to science and mission operations is adapted from the earlier Dawn mission. Psyche shares two major attributes with Dawn, also Discovery class, that makes Dawn an obvious template. Both missions orbit massive bodies in the main asteroid belt with previously unmeasured gravity fields, and both utilize solar electric propulsion. The Dawn operations concept was developed over many years, coming to completion while the spacecraft was en route to the first target, protoplanet (4) Vesta. Because these concepts were demonstrated in flight, the Psyche team was able to reuse them to realize a plan of similar fidelity during the first phase of proposal development. Understanding the operations concept to this level of detail during mission formulation reduces the implementation risk of the Psyche mission.

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“…The specific science planning constraints and uncertainties that led to the adoption of this approach are fully discussed in Ref. 2 and included knowledge of when the spacecraft would arrive at Vesta, the fixed length of time that the spacecraft could remain in orbit, Vesta season, Vesta pole orientation and spin rate, and the details of the science orbits such as period, inclination, and phasing. The science operations team developed a set of orbit requirements that would enable the observations, but those requirements had relatively large tolerances for error compared to the exact timing required for building spacecraft and instrument sequence products.…”

Section: Dawn Science Plan Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficacy of the Dawn Vesta Science Plan

Polanskey

Joy

Raymond

2013

Space Operations: Experience, Mission Systems, and Advanced Concepts

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The Dawn Mission to the main belt asteroids (4)Vesta and (1)Ceres presents unique challenges for science planning and operations. The uncertainties of achieving orbit around a substantial body with an unknown gravity field limit the ability of the mission designers to predict in advance the timing of geometric events and orbit parameters. Therefore the science plan architecture had to be robust to a large range of planning uncertainties. However, the complexity of instrument interactions with each other and with the spacecraft required that the science plan and instrument sequences be developed a year in advance of Vesta arrival. Because the science sequence planning and execution timeline did not allow for significant adjustments of the sequences prior to execution, and because the operations time at the asteroids was quite limited, the science plan was designed to be functionally redundant. Functional redundancy was intended to provide multiple observations of the same surface under different conditions. Observing in this manner was intended to protect against potential data losses while providing complementary datasets in the event that all data are successfully acquired. The Dawn spacecraft was captured into orbit around Vesta in July 2011 and will complete Vesta science operations in the summer of 2012. During the approach and early science operations phases there were multiple, unrelated incidents resulting in instrument datasets that were partially lost or degraded. Careful accounting of the datasets returned to date clearly illustrates how the data losses were successfully offset by the redundancy in the observation plan. One specific success is the framing camera stereo imaging from the High Altitude Mapping Orbit, which is needed to generate the topography map. This paper describes the results of the execution of the science operations plan and how that compared to the assumptions that informed the development of the plan.

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Dawn Science Planning, Operations and Archiving

Cited by 19 publications

References 9 publications

Dawn completes its mission at 4 Vesta

Dawn completes its mission at 4 Vesta

Psyche Science Operations Concept: Maximize Reuse to Minimize Risk

Efficacy of the Dawn Vesta Science Plan

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