The Mars Express Integrated Station Scheduling

The ground station usage on the Mars Express mission is based on the ESTRACK network (ESA Deep Space Stations New Norcia and Cebreros) and on the NASA Deep Space Network. The allocation and scheduling of the required ground stations is an iterative process running over several months starting with the MEX Spacecraft Operation Manager’s long term station time requests and ending with the delivery of the final schedule to the different ground stations. This paper will describe the processes involved in the Mars Express mission as far as ground stations handling is concerned. Some of these processes have recently been automated. The reasons of this automation and how it was implemented will also be presented.