Use of Best Practices During Operations Development for AIM

Abstract

The use of best practices and lesson's learned has been instrumental in the early development of the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission. From the development and use of the Concept of Operations Document as a tool in the requirements development process [1] to the use of the operational control system and the Flight Operations Team throughout the instrument, bus and observatory level Integration and Test phases, AIM has leveraged off of previous practices and low-cost operational concepts to minimize both the cost of mission operations and the risks inherent in such low-budget operations. The University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) has been a leader in university-operated missions. LASP has had previous success in using students in the support of all facets of operations, going back to the Solar Mesosphere Explorer in the 1980's, and continuing on numerous missions today, including the completely student operated Student Nitric Oxide Experiment (SNOE) satellite, a project that ended in December of last year. AIM intends to capitalize on this past experience by involving students in the design, development and operation of the mission. AIM will be operated from the LASP Multi-mission Operations Center (MMOC), and is anticipated to share that facility with the QuikSCAT, ICESat and SORCE projects. The LASP MMOC has been developed around a host of different spacecraft buses, including the LASP built SNOE bus, the Ball Aerospace RS-2000 buses used for QuikSCAT and ICESat and the Orbital Sciences Corporation’s (OSC) LEOStar-2 Platform used for SORCE. AIM will also utilize the Orbital LEOStar-2 Platform and SORCE Lesson's Learned have been heavily factored into the AIM development. Besides the LASP internal Lesson's Learned, AIM has also leveraged the experience of other small satellites projects and other satellite operators from civil space, military space, industry and academia. A set of Best Practices [2] developed by the AIAA's Space Operations