Overview of Radiation Belt Storm Probes fault management system

Abstract

The Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission is part of NASA's Living With a Star Program, and launched August 30, 2012. The fundamental goal of the mission is to provide an understanding, ideally to the point of predictability, of how populations of relativistic electrons and penetrating ions in space form or change in response to variable inputs of energy from the Sun. The mission consists of two nearly-identical observatories launched into highly-elliptical Earth orbits, as well as the ground and data systems necessary to return and distribute science and housekeeping data and provide command and control of the space systems. The two observatories launched aboard a single Atlas V 401 launch vehicle, and were placed in orbits that cause one observatory to lap the other approximately four times per year. This mission design enables an investigation of both spatial and temporal effects within the radiation belts using only two observatories, and the two year science mission allows an investigation of all local time positions and interaction regions. Each Observatory contains a suite of instruments to study ions, electrons and the local magnetic and electric fields. An overview of the RBSP mission is presented with an emphasis on the fault management system design. The goal of the RBSP fault management system is to be as simple as possible while 1) ensuring that the observatory is capable of detecting, correcting, and recovering from any single, recoverable anomaly that affects the health and safety of the observatory and 2) the observatory meets the overall mission concept and mission goals. Five high-level requirements that define the fault management redundancy, modes/safing, and ground intervention concepts will be presented to demonstrate that despite using a relatively simple architecture, the RBSP fault management system allows for mission goals to be met.