Applying successful near mission operations approaches and refining for contour mission operations

Abstract

On February 17, 1996, the first NASA Discovery Class Mission to launch, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft, began its journey to the asteroid Eros. NEAR is the first planetary spacecraft to be designed and operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL). In July 2002, the comet nucleus tour (CONTOUR) spacecraft, the second planetary spacecraft to be built and operated at JHUAPL and the 6th in the series of NASA Discovery Class Missions, will be launched. Both NEAR and CONTOUR share ambitious “Faster, Better, Cheaper” goals. Furthermore, with both missions being developed and operated at the same institution, a unique opportunity exists to refine CONTOUR designs and operational practices based on 5 years of NEAR operational experience. This paper provides an overview of designs and operational practices implemented by JHU/APL to safely and effectively conduct the NEAR mission. This paper discusses how these will be applied to the CONTOUR mission and what improvements are planned. It also discusses the unique challenges CONTOUR possesses for operating a 4 year mission with widely varying operations activity levels at low cost.