Jane A. Steck

Goddard Space Flight Center

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Co-Authors

Curtis Fatig

Goddard Space Flight Center

John C. Isaacs

Space Telescope Science Institute

Jonathan Gal-Edd

Goddard Space Flight Center

Robert Zepp

Space Telescope Science Institute

Jeff A. Valenti

Space Telescope Science Institute

M. Stiavelli

Space Telescope Science Institute

N. Earl

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Anton M. Koekemoer

Space Telescope Science Institute

Larry Bradley

Space Telescope Science Institute

M. Meixner

Space Telescope Science Institute

Cooperative Institutions

Space Telescope Science Institute

456

Goddard Space Flight Center

279

Northrop Grumman (United States)

124

Johns Hopkins University

Michigan Science Center

University of Arizona

European Space Agency

European Space Research and Technology Centre

Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

Max Planck Society

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Enhancing the Ace Control Center for Multiple Uses of Spacecraft Operations

Space Mission Operations and Ground Data Systems - SpaceOps '96 (1996)

Frank Snow L Garrardm Thomas Jane A. Steck Jesse L. Maury

Center (category theory)

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The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

arXiv (Cornell University) (2023)

Jonathan P. Gardner John C. Mather R. Abbott James S. Abell Mark Abernathy

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.

Spitzer Space Telescope

Aperture (computer memory)

10.48550/arxiv.2304.04869

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Citations (12)

Enhancing the ACE Control Center for the Multiple uses of Spacecraft Integration and Test and Mission and Science Operations

European Space Agency eBooks (1996)

Frank Snow T. L. Garrard Jane A. Steck Jesse L. Maury

NASA, at the direction of its Administrator, is undertaking a grand challenge of change for faster, better, cheaper; strong emphasis is now being placed on staying within cost projections while still meeting schedule and performance goals. This led NASA to mandate fixed-price, capped-cost programs. The Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) is the first mission to be funded in this manner. Consequently, the ACE Project has sought novel approaches and techniques to constrain costs without compromising schedule or science goals. A key approach that has been adopted is novel, multiple reusage of the ACE control center subsystem. ACE will use a version of the Transportable Payload Operations Control Center (TPOCC) for its mission operations. It was determined in Phase 8 of the ACE Project that a potential existed for substantial savings if the adaptation of the TPOCC for ACE Mission Operations could include adapting it as well for use as the primary component in the Ground Support Equipment for Integration and Testing of the ACE Spacecraft and, at the same time, also adapting it be the basic component in the ACE Science Center; thus, realizing three separate uses for essentially the same system. Implementing this approach required enhancing the TPOCC requirements, significant changes in its development schedule, and changes in the allocation and activities of personnel responsible for development of ACE operations. This paper discusses how these issues were addressed, the unforeseen problems that have been encountered, how these problems have been resolved, and an evaluation of what this approach portends for application to future missions.

Payload (computing)

Component (thermodynamics)

Mandate

Mission control center

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Low cost ground systems - Fantasy or reality

Proceedings - IEEE Aerospace Conference (2003)

Jonathan Gal-Edd Jane A. Steck Curtis Fatig Robert Zepp

During the concept phase and initial design of a NASA spacecraft, no NASA project says, 'I want an expensive ground system'. In fact, as with other parts of the total project, a zero cost option is the preferred choice. Our experience has shown that putting together a 'low cost' ground system including development systems, control center and ground station, is not as simple as one is first led to believe. This paper addresses several areas of ground system design: onboard spacecraft, ground stations and networks, simulators and laboratories, telemetry and command systems, all of which require careful analysis to accommodate the ground systems cost savings. We have also found that changes to the ground system design are often used to reduce technical risk in other areas of the mission. Many of the ground system impacts from these changes are advertised as 'low cost', but when taken as a whole, the cost impact on the ground system can be large.

Ground zero

Ground station

Ground segment

Common ground

10.1109/aero.2002.1035296

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Citations (1)

Selection of the Ground Segment for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST)

STIN (2000)

Jonathan Gal-Edd John C. Isaacs Leonard Olson Thomas Pfarr Jane A. Steck

The Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) is a large aperture space telescope designated to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). NGST will continue the recent breakthroughs of HST in our understanding of the earliest origins of stars, galaxies and the elements that are the foundations of Life. It is expected that the costs of NGST should be kept within a fraction of those for HST. The ground segment has a goal of reducing the cost of NGST in comparison to HST by 50% to 75%. To mitigate risks for NGST a flight demonstrator called Nexus is planned for 2005. Nexus is a smaller scale telescope, which plans to test the deployment and optical stability of the telescope, the Wave Front Control process, and the thermal performance of the sunshield. The Nexus Ground System will be developed by GSFC and STSci, and the NGST Ground System will be developed by STSci. The authors of this paper are engaged in a study to evaluate and recommend selection of a Command and Telemetry system for each of these Ground Systems. This paper focuses on the process of selecting the real-time Command and Telemetry system for NGST. We would like to use the conference as a sounding board as we make a selection.

Spitzer Space Telescope

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James Web Space Telescope: supporting multiple ground system transitions in one year

Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE (2004)

Ryan Detter Curtis Fatig Jane A. Steck

Ideas, requirements, and concepts developed during the very early phases of the mission design often conflict with the reality of a situation once the prime contractors are awarded. This happened for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as well. The high level requirement of a common real-time ground system for both the Integration and Test (I&T), as well as the Operation phase of the mission is meant to reduce the cost and time needed later in the mission development for recertification of databases, command and control systems, scripts, display pages, etc. In the case of JWST, the early Phase A flight software development needed a real-time ground system and database prior to the spacecraft prime contractor being selected. To compound the situation, the very low level requirements for the real-time ground system were not well defined. These two situations caused the initial real-time ground system to be switched out for a system that was previously used by the flight software development team. To meet the high-level requirement, a third ground system was selected based on the prime spacecraft contractor needs and JWST Project decisions. The JWST ground system team has responded to each of these changes successfully. The lessons learned from each transition have not only made each transition smoother, but have also resolved issues earlier in the mission development than what would normally occur.

Ground segment

Mission control center

10.1117/12.550475

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The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (2023)

Jonathan P. Gardner John C. Mather R. Abbott James S. Abell Mark Abernathy

Spitzer Space Telescope

Aperture (computer memory)

10.1088/1538-3873/acd1b5

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Citations (212)

Ground systems: maximize science downlink to reduce costs

Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE (2002)

Jonathan Gal-Edd Curtis Fatig Jane A. Steck Robert Zepp

Selections and tradeoffs during mission concept development and ground system architecture definition determine the cost-effectiveness of the spacecraft operations. The Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) makes this difficult due to its unique mission requirements. Experience has shown a greater savings can be achieved at the ground station and it's interfaces with the spacecraft. Since a majority of the bandwidth is used for science data, this is one of the major areas to explore. This paper will address problems and experiences with the various approaches to accommodate the ground station interfaces with the spacecraft. As a team we have explored several approaches: - Antenna size, frequency, and transmit power on the spacecraft is a big driver in determining the ground station cost, - Data guarantee verses data loss risk, - Down-linking all data verses putting more logic for science processing on board. This includes discussions on guaranteed data delivery protocols and downlink change only data, - Evaluation of recording the data at the ground station for a reduced rate playback later, and - Transmitters at different frequencies for simultaneous downlinks. Many of these topics and how they are applied, change over the course of time as projects implement their requirements. To achieve the goal of 'low cost', innovated approaches have to be taken into consideration.

Ground station

Ground segment

10.1117/12.472712

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Selection of the Ground Segment for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) Flight Demonstrator (Nexus)

Jonathan Gal-Edd Jane A. Steck John C. Isaacs Martin J. Bredeck Curtis Fatig

Nexus was a technology demonstrator project that was designed to bridge from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to its successor, the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). This paper focuses on the process used in designing the ground segment for Nexus and the lessons learned in its development. Ground station cost drivers were: (1) Contact time, (2) Cost of transporting data between the ground stations and control center, and (3) Cost savings via ground automation. We found that reducing the communication requirement in just the first 100 days could have reduced the total ground station cost by 40%. Contact time cost dwarfed the cost trade between automation development and off-shift operations personnel. Real-time Telemetry and Control (T&C) system analysis was divided into: (1) Potential reuse of the Nexus real-time (T&C) system for NGST, (2) Feasibility of using a 'Finite State-Based Modeling' product, and (3) Selecting a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) versus Government Off The Shelf (GOTS) products. We found that each of the products evaluated in detail (ASIST, EPOCH 2000, and ITOS) could adequately support basic mission requirements. Lessons learned were: (1) Include operations at the beginning of the mission, and (2) Develop an operations concept as soon as possible.

Ground segment

Mission control center

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James Webb Space Telescope: Supporting Multiple Ground System Transitions in One Year

Ryan Detter Curtis Fatig Jane A. Steck

Ideas, requirements, and concepts developed during the very early phases of the mission design often conflict with the reality of a situation once the prime contractors are awarded. This happened for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as well. The high level requirement of a common real-time ground system for both the Integration and Test (I&T), as well as the Operation phase of the mission is meant to reduce the cost and time needed later in the mission development for re-certification of databases, command and control systems, scripts, display pages, etc. In the case of JWST, the early Phase A flight software development needed a real-time ground system and database prior to the spacecraft prime contractor being selected. To compound the situation, the very low level requirements for the real-time ground system were not well defined. These two situations caused the initial real-time ground system to be switched out for a system that was previously used by the Bight software development team. To meet the high-!evel requirement, a third ground system was selected based on the prime spacecraft contractor needs and JWST Project decisions. The JWST ground system team has responded to each of these changes successfully. The lessons learned from each transition have not only made each transition smoother, but have also resolved issues earlier in the mission development than what would normally occur.

Common ground

Mission control center

Ground segment

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