Multi-mission Satellite Management

Abstract:

NOAA’s next-generation environmental satellite, the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) replaces the current Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES). JPSS satellites carry sensors which collect meteorological, oceanographic, climatological, and solar-geophysical observations of the earth, atmosphere, and space. The first JPSS satellite was launched in 2011 and is currently NOAA’s primary operational polar satellite. The JPSS ground system is the Common Ground System (CGS), and provides command, control, and communications (C3) and data processing (DP). A multi-mission system, CGS provides combinations of C3/DP for numerous NASA, NOAA, DoD, and international missions. In preparation for the next JPSS satellite, CGS improved its multi-mission capabilities to enhance mission operations for larger constellations of earth observing satellites with the added benefit of streamlining mission operations for other NOAA missions.

CGS’s multi-mission capabilities allows management all of assets as a single enterprise, more efficiently using ground resources and personnel and consolidating multiple ground systems into one. Sophisticated scheduling algorithms compare mission priorities and constraints across all ground stations, creating an enterprise schedule optimized to mission needs, which CGS executes to acquire the satellite link, uplink commands, downlink and route data to the operations and data processing facilities, and generate the final products for delivery to downstream users.

This paper will illustrate the CGS’s ability to manage multiple, enterprise-wide polar orbiting missions by demonstrating resource modeling and tasking, production of enterprise contact schedules for NOAA’s Fairbanks ground station (using both standing and ad hoc requests), deconflicting resources due to ground outages, and updating resource allocations through dynamic priority definitions.