ATV and ISS Flight Controller Training

Abstract

Simulation is today an essential part for the training of all operational actors involved in space programs. In the particular case of the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), a complex European spacecraft launched by Ariane 5, and designed to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with several metric tons of dry cargo, fuel, water, air, as well as to raise ISS orbit -, the actors are located in various Control Centers (mainly ATVCC in Toulouse, MCC-M in Moscow and MCC-H in Houston). Therefore only a distributed simulation can provide the adequate level of demonstration, and ensure an efficient training. This paper gives a technical overview of the ambitious solution developed by Astrium Space Transportation, under the responsibility of the European Space Agency, for the ATV project. Indeed two high fidelity simulators, ATV in Toulouse and ISS in Moscow, with hardware and human in the loop, were closely coupled in real-time by an HLA infrastructure, over a secured pan-European network infrastructure, and used for all Joint Integrated Simulation campaigns. This distributed simulation is implemented for all mission phases except LEOP and Transfer to Phasing Orbit (TPO), which do not require much coordination of acvtivity. From a training point of view this paper focuses on the most challenging phase: the ATV approach and docking to ISS, familiarly also called ‘RendezVous’. The 'human factor' includes interaction between flight controllers in the 3 control centers of Toulouse, Moscow and Houston as well as cooperation between the ATV-CC main team in Toulouse and 'support groups' from Moscow and /or Houston depending on the simulated phase and particular training needs. Moreover the simulation facility was also used for real time mission tracking of ATV Johannes Kepler and ATV Edoardo Amaldi missions, as an illustration of ATV simulator capability to support real-time operations troubleshooting.