# Presentation: 723483

**Mission Operations**
**Its Relationship to Projects and Users**

**Paul Ondrus **
**ESMO Project Manager**

## Topics

**ESMO Overview**
**Mission Engineering Process**
**Mission Operations Roles in Project Lifecycle**
**Formulation Phase**
**Implementation Phase**
- Design, Development, I&T
- Launch & Checkout
- Prime Ops
- Extended Ops
**Lessons Learned from CSOC**
**Looking forward**
**Roadmap**

## ESMO OverviewESMO’s Role

**Responsible for managing operations activities of a diverse set GSFC Earth Science Missions with varying operational requirements due to mission complexity in various stages of the project life-cycle **
**Complex multi-instrument platforms EOS (Aqua, Terra, Aura)**
**Extended lifetime missions (UARS, ERBS, EO-1, TOMs)**
**Prime operations phases (TRMM, ICEsat, SORCE, GRACE)**
**Formulation phase mission (GPM)**
**Requires coordination with a multitude of external interface interfaces **
**Inter-agency (JPL, Langley, JSC)**
**Other government organizations (NOAA, USGS, Navy, Air Force)**
**International Organizations (NASDA, ESA)**

## ESMO Overview

**ESMO Overview**
**ESMO Project Organization Structure (Code 428)**

- Deputy Project
- Manager

- Project Manager

- Mission Safety

- T&C Systems
- Networks
- Level 0 Processing
- Flight Dynamics Systems

- Flight Operations

- Mission Directors
- Ops Director
- University Programs

- Flight Operations

- Business Mgr

- Mission Systems

- Science Interface Mgr

- Systems Engr
- IT Security
- Config. Mgmt

- Data Mgr

## Operations Role in the Mission LifecycleMission Engineering Process

- Support
- Space
- Elements

- Develop
- Operations

- Define and Support Ground System

- Input to mission and space element specs

- Formulation

- Implementation
- (design, development, ops, and extended ops)

- Support for space-element design

- Support for Integration & Test procedure development

- Support and Monitor Integration & Test

- Develop Concept

- Plan Operations

- Develop procedures

- Test & Simulation

- Prime Operations Phase

- Extended Operations Phase & EOL

- Mission Requirements

- Ground Element Requirements

- Implement Ground System Support Acceptance Test

- EOL

## Operations Role in the Mission LifecycleLifecycle Phases

**Formulation/Approval**
**Program**
**Project**
**Implementation**
**Design, Development, Integration and Test**
**Launch & Checkout Operations**
**Prime Operations**
**Extended mission Operation**

## Operations Role in the Mission LifecycleStaffing vs. Cost

- Estimated Ops Budget

**Ops.**
**Costs**

**Mission life-cycle phase**

- Formulation

- Implementation thru
- launch/checkout

- Prime Mission Ops

- Extended Mission Ops

-   Ops Costs reduction during prime mission phase occur from
-  Ground or Flight Automation
-  Project willing to accept higher risks by reducing staff
-   Actual budget tends to be less than estimated especially during as mission matures
-   Extended Mission Operations phase is never budgeted though most missions exceed design lifetime
-  E.g.  PI ESSP mission budget caps

- Actual Ops. Costs

## Operations Role in the Mission LifecycleFormulation Phase

**Program Formulation**
**Operational concepts often overlooked**
- e.g.  Formation/constellation management not considered early on for Cloudsat & Calipso
**Evolving Science requirements**
- E.g Terra/Aqua operability requirements evolved to be tighter due to increased operational needs of some science products that require worst case 3 hour latency
**Project Formulation**
**Operational considerations are often under-estimated**
**Weighing operational impacts based on type of mission and complexity of operations**
- PI vs. Large class missions
- Level of mission risk - e.g. low cost, single payload scientific missions with minimal redundancy may allow for more innovative operations concepts than large structured programs with rigid data structures and multiple customers
**Understanding the constant PI vs. Formulation manager “tug-of-war” and ensuring operational considerations are included in cost capped missions**

## Landsat 7 and EO-1

**Landsat 7 and EO-1**

**Overlapping Footprints of Constellation Instruments**
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** **
** **
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## Operations concept development 
Mission Complexity has significant impact on operations lifecycle costs and is often overlooked in by formulation manager
Formulation managers tend to trade present development budget for future operation budget
Identifying Payload class of operations (survey, event driven, or adaptive)
Operations Complexity Factors/trades
Instrument operations - level of onboard autonomy, on-board storage capability, number of instruments on platform and level of interaction between them, Instrument duty cycles and reconfigurations, level of instrument calibrations required
Spacecraft Operations - Station keeping requirements, Attitude control requirement, level of on-board autonomy
Formation flying needs
Data Operations -  End-to-end data latency requirements, data structures, data verification and data distribution requirements
Communications (significant operational cost driver)- Requirements for uplink and downlink, amount of data to be transferred and frequency
Evaluating existing infrastructure to determine needs.  E.g. Do I have to pay for TDRSS?

**Mission Complexity has significant impact on operations lifecycle costs and is often overlooked in by formulation manager**
- Formulation managers tend to trade present development budget for future operation budget
**Identifying Payload class of operations (survey, event driven, or adaptive)**
**Operations Complexity Factors/trades**
- _Instrument operations_ - level of onboard autonomy, on-board storage capability, number of instruments on platform and level of interaction between them, Instrument duty cycles and reconfigurations, level of instrument calibrations required
- _Spacecraft Operations_ - Station keeping requirements, Attitude control requirement, level of on-board autonomy
- Formation flying needs
- _Data Operations_ -  End-to-end data latency requirements, data structures, data verification and data distribution requirements
- _Communications _(significant operational cost driver)- Requirements for uplink and downlink, amount of data to be transferred and frequency
- Evaluating existing infrastructure to determine needs.  E.g. **Do I have to pay for TDRSS?**

**Operations Role in the Mission Lifecycle****Formulation Phase**

## Operations Role in the Mission LifecycleFormulation Phase

**Operations Role in the Mission Lifecycle****Formulation Phase**

-   **Requirements Assessments - ****Key to accurately assessing **
**    ****operations needs**

## Operations Role in the Mission LifecycleFormulation Phase

-    **Risks**
-  Determining level of operational risk project and users are willing to accept

- Operational Risks

- Operations
- Costs

## Design and Development 
Operations development costs are generally well known
Primary trades - Ground Automation vs. People
general rule-of-thumb:  “ you have to do operations to understand it”
Level of instrument team control over operations
Operational Agreements between operations and instrument teams are key to mission success
Ensure plan is in place between project and operations for transition from launch to operations
Involve Operations personnel in I&T activities to aid in training and reducing costs

**Operations development costs are generally well known**
**Primary trades - Ground Automation vs. People**
- general rule-of-thumb:  “ you have to do operations to understand it”
- Level of instrument team control over operations
**Operational Agreements between operations and instrument teams are key to mission success**
**Ensure plan is in place between project and operations for transition from launch to operations**
**Involve Operations personnel in I&T activities to aid in training and reducing costs**

**Operations Role in the Mission Lifecycle****Implementation Phase**

## Operations Role in the Mission LifecycleImplementation Phases

**Launch, On-orbit checkout**
**Sufficient staffing is usually not the issue but roles and responsibilities during this phase tend to be hot topics**
**Operations personnel gain valuable knowledge from spacecraft manufacturer**
- Need to establish good relationship early to ease flow of information
**Prime Operations **
**Retaining core competency becomes a significant driver in maintaining error-free operations**
- Keeping core personnel challenged is key to retaining core competency
**Plan of budget cuts **
- Develop in advance  methods to reduce operations costs (usually requires an investment)

## Extended Mission 
More and more missions operate beyond spacecraft design life due to enough need to continue to provide science community with data continuity
Accepting higher risks and/or implementing greater operations autonomy is required to keep missions alive
E.g. Replacing hard to maintain MOC hardware, merging similar operations centers, more educational institution involvement, increasing automation

**More and more missions operate beyond spacecraft design life due to enough need to continue to provide science community with data continuity**
**Accepting higher risks and/or implementing greater operations autonomy is required to keep missions alive**
- E.g. Replacing hard to maintain MOC hardware, merging similar operations centers, more educational institution involvement, increasing automation

**Operations Role in the Mission Lifecycle****Implementation Phases**

## Performance based contracting doesn’t encourage system or mission engineering
Need a lawyer to understand operations and performance metrics
Budget process was disconnected from operations
Discouraged innovation and insertion of new technology due to broken budget process
Lack of roadmap to plan a budget 
Major infrastructure issues were outside the scope of contract
Strategic planning implies investment money
CSOC/SOMO did not have money to invest in a strategy
Making everything the same across all centers doesn’t necessarily save money

**Need a lawyer to understand operations and performance metrics**
**Budget process was disconnected from operations**
**Discouraged innovation and insertion of new technology due to broken budget process**
**Lack of roadmap to plan a budget **
**Major infrastructure issues were outside the scope of contract**
**Strategic planning implies investment money**
**CSOC/SOMO did not have money to invest in a strategy**
**Making everything the same across all centers doesn’t necessarily save money**

**Lessons learned From CSOC**

## Looking forward challenge

**GSFC operations environment is undergoing change with **
**Fewer GSFC missions**
**Smaller diverse mission sets **
**Greater inter-agency and international coordination and partnering **
**Increased budget pressures on operations**
**Uncertain network communications infrastructure**
**Full cost accounting**
**Significant security (physical/electronic) changes**
**How do we address this changing environment?**

## Roadmap

**Center elements need to learn how to work together again and assume ownership of operations**
**Test center/enterprise strategic plans for infrastructure against mission models**
**Ensure that there is enough in-house work to maintain key operational competencies **
**Be proactive in developing new concepts and options (RSDO)**
**Need to agile with small, diverse mission models**