Spitzer Space Telescope, the fourth and final of NASA's great observatories, and the first mission in NASA's Origins Program was launched 25 August 2003 into an Earth-trailing solar orbit. The observatory was designed to probe and explore the universe in the infrared. Before science data could be acquired, however, the observatory had to be initialized, characterized, calibrated, and commissioned. A two phased operations approach was defined to complete this work. These phases were identified as In-Orbit Checkout (IOC) and Science Verification (SV). Because the observatory lifetime is cryogen-limited these operations had to be highly efficient. The IOC/SV operations design accommodated a pre-defined distributed organizational structure and a complex, cryogenic flight system. Many checkout activities were inter-dependent, and therefore the operations concept and ground data system had to provide the flexibility required for a 'short turn-around' environment. This paper describes the adaptive operations system design and evolution, implementation, and lessons-learned from the completion of IOC/SV.
Spitzer Space Telescope in-orbit checkout and science verification operations
SpaceOps & Canadian Space Agency, Ground System Architecture Workshop (GSAW) ; 2004 ; Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2004-05-21
Conference paper
No indication
English
AIAA-2004-5096 Spitzer Orbit Determination During In-Orbit Checkout Phase
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2004
|