Novel ICT Services and Systems Architecture for a Successful Herschel-Planck Mission

Abstract

A well designed architecture for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services and systems is a key success factor for supporting ambitious new space missions, such as Herschel-Planck. Developing this on the basis of a shared operational ICT infrastructure, that also supports missions in orbit for a decade or more, presents a very interesting challenge. The ICT services and infrastructure of the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) have been continuously developed with the aim to minimize the occurrence and impact of outages, in particular during highly critical phases, in a highly efficient balance with the total cost of ownership. Innovative concepts have been built on the basis of experience grown over the last 30 years, resulting in new architectures using commercial off the shelf products, good practices from industry and standards, as well as lessons learnt from past missions to continually improve the support. This paper describes the ICT systems and the steps taken to establish the required services, using the HerschelPlanck (H.-P.) mission as example. Herschel Planck is the first ESA mission launched using novel computer solutions based on Linux operating systems and hosted in the modernized ESOC data centers. Further novelties in the H.-P. ground segment are a highly available data network delivering quasi real-time science data across Europe using a redundancy concept based on DSL technology, and a high capacity network for TT&C and payload data, based on services and technology not used in the ESA OPSNET before. Using HerschelPlanck as example of being the first customer of new ICT service and infrastructure elements, the paper is highlighting key aspects of the innovations and their benefits for other missions. The paper not only describes the technological aspects, but also the related service management approach, such as configuration control, change control, incident and problem management including 1st , 2nd and 3rd line support, and shift coordination. Differences in the approaches for preparation and routine phases versus LEOP are highlighted, including dynamic external supplier support. The reward was a flawless Herschel-Planck LEOP.