GlobVision designed and developed a fully automated, web-based mission planning system (MPS) software for the NEOSSat mission, which has been tested in NEOSSat operations (i.e. the ground segment of the mission). The NEOSSat spacecraft is a microsatellite equipped with an optical telescope designed to detect and track both high earth-orbiting objects and near earth asteroids. The NEOSSat MPS is a ground-based automated system that requires minimal intervention from operators, thus reducing spacecraft operations cost. The MPS is modular and scalable, and is capable of scheduling the hundreds of daily observations and tasks desired of NEOSSat by science and military users. Images can be captured in star-stare mode (where the camera pointing is stationary) or in track-rate mode (where the camera pointing follows the moving in-orbit target as the image is being captured).
The NEOSSat MPS performs all of the orbital, attitude, power, memory and space weather calculations required to both maximally accommodate users’ requests and optimize NEOSSat performance while respecting mission and environmental constraints, thus maintaining the satellite’s operational safety. Finally, the NEOSSat MPS generates the optimal schedule and translates it to a sequence of payload and spacecraft macro-commands to send to the Mission Operations Center (MOC) for final upload to the NEOSSat.
