Rosetta Ground Segment and Mission Operations

Abstract

At the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt (Germany) the activities for ground segment development and mission operations preparation for Rosetta started in 1997. Many of the characteristics of this mission were new to ESOC and have therefore required an early effort in identifying all the necessary facilities and functions. The ground segment required entirely new elements to be developed, such as the large deep-space antenna built in New Norcia (Western Australia). The long duration of the journey to the comet, of about 10 years, required an effort in the operations concept definition to reduce the cost of routine monitoring and control. The new approaches adopted for the Rosetta mission include full transfer of on-board software maintenance responsibility to the operations team, and the installation of a fully functioning spacecraft engineering model at ESOC, in support of testing and troubleshooting activities in flight, but also for training of the operations staff. Special measures have also been taken to minimise the ground contact with the spacecraft during cruise, to reduce cost, down to a typical frequency of one contact per week. The problem of maintaining knowledge and expertise in the long flight to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko is also a major challenge for the Rosetta operations team, which has been tackled early in the mission preparation phase and evolved with the first years of flight experience.

Venus Express mission

“…[53] The Venus orbit insertion was divided into several steps, starting with a capture maneuver which included a 52 min long burn by the 400 N main engine, to achieve the required delta-v of 1251 m/s [Warhaut and Accomazzo, 2009]. This delta-v is significantly higher than that required for the capture of Mars Express into Mars orbit.…”

Rosetta operations at the comet

“…Rosetta is a cornerstone scientific mission of the European Space Agency [1][2][3], launched on 2nd March 2004 on an Ariane 5Gþrocket. Its main scientific objective was to rendezvous with the nucleus of comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko in 2014, to orbit it for about 1.5 …”