Mission management prepared for EarthCARE regardless of disruption

The core of any launch preparations at ESA is the ‘simulations marketing campaign’. By rehearsing the time-critical operations that happen on and round launch day, the marketing campaign trains the spacecraft’s flight management staff along with help groups from flight dynamics, floor techniques and software program help in addition to groups from the satellite tv for pc’s producer and instrument groups right into a single cohesive unit.

Skilled Simulations Officers monitor the actions of the mixed Mission Management Crew and inject faults into the bottom section that power the staff to react in actual time: What ought to they do if a member of the management staff instantly falls in poor health? What if communication with the spacecraft is interrupted at a vital second? How ought to they react to an alert from ESA’s House Particles Workplace warning of a attainable collision in orbit?

“Our Simulations Officers are superb at discovering potential weak factors,” says EarthCARE Flight Operations Director, José Morales. “This staff is superb, however younger, for instance. So, they have been pressured to deal with a problem whereas their skilled staff chief was stored out of the motion. What they face in the course of the simulation marketing campaign will possible be far worse than something they encounter on launch day. However in spacecraft operations, we hope for the perfect and plan for the worst.”

Efficient communication is crucial on launch day. The ESA groups should work seamlessly with these from companions such because the Japanese house company, JAXA, who developed EarthCARE’s Cloud Profiling Radar.

To this finish, a delegation of JAXA engineers and staff leaders joined their ESA colleagues within the Mission Management Crew for the simulations marketing campaign and can help the operations of their instrument in actual time in the course of the Launch and Early Orbit Section. As a part of the simulation marketing campaign, the groups rehearsed the problem-solving steps that they’d undergo if one thing have been to go flawed in the course of the deployment of the radar’s 2.5-metre reflector dish.

Nevertheless, there was one disruption that even our Simulation Officers had not deliberate for. Whereas finishing up close by engineering works, civil authorities within the metropolis of Darmstadt uncovered an object that they feared might be an outdated, unexploded bomb. If that have been the case, the encompassing space would have to be evacuated, together with ESA mission management. The day’s EarthCARE simulations have been cancelled whereas the item was investigated.

“It’s not uncommon to problem the staff to evacuate the management centre throughout a simulation,” says Isabel Rojo, EarthCARE Spacecraft Operations Supervisor. “However that could be very totally different from having to replan our preparations schedule only a few weeks earlier than a launch. The timing was unlucky, growing the strain on an already tight schedule, however coping with surprising challenges is a part of what we do right here.”

Luckily, the item was not a bomb, and the EarthCARE staff was capable of return to mission management the subsequent day. They’ve now entered essentially the most demanding section of their launch preparations because the Simulation Officers increase the stakes to the purpose of just about dropping the spacecraft. After this climactic state of affairs, the simulations will return to extra gentle anomalies earlier than the staff carries out a trouble-free costume rehearsal on 17 Might.

By that point, they are going to be totally ready to information EarthCARE by way of its first days in orbit and onwards because it begins its mission to enhance our understanding of the position that clouds and aerosols play in Earth’s altering local weather.

Comply with @esaoperations and @esa_eo on X and esa_earth on Instagram for EarthCARE updates on and round launch day.

Expertise the stress at ESA mission management in our quick movie: “The Burn”