1. Flight Operations Segment Status
Swarm 7th Data Quality Workshop
Ignacio Clérigo
Delft, 27/10/2017

2. Business as usual Flight Operation Status No, it was not a boring year Operational highlights since Edinburgh Exciting times ahead of us Future outlook

3. 4 years in 14 figures (Almost) four years in orbit
More than orbits
204 weekly reports
13 constellation maintenance manoeuvres and 5 collision avoidance
telecommands uplinked
7.888 passes since commissioning
24.6 TB of TM parameters stored
189 manual activities since commissioning
294 procedures updated since launch
42 spacecraft database releases
57 spacecraft anomaly reports and 137 ground anomaly reports

4. Platform status No changes since Edinburgh: all redundancies available
SW-A
SW-B
SW-C
DMS
CTU RU OK
AOCS
MTQ
CGPS
CESS
FGM
TT&C
Thermal
Power
PCDU
Battery
EoC = V SA
All SAR OK

5. Payload status
No changes since Edinburgh: all instruments working except ASM in Swarm C
SW-A
SW-B
SW-C
VFM OK
ASM
Failed
(Nov 2014)
EFI
TII
3 orbits/day
1 orbit/day LP
ACC
STR
GPSR

6. Ground station status No changes since Edinburgh
Ground Station Network
Kiruna: ESA station, 2 antennas + SSC commercial station, 3 antennas
Svalbard: KSAT commercial station, 2 antennas
Troll: KSAT commercial station, 1 antenna
Only for contingencies, re-validation done in September 2017

7. Ground station status
Routine
Contingencies

8. Routine operations status
No changes since Edinburgh
Pass allocation
2 passes per day per satellite, variable pattern
Coverage: 10 hours manned by SPACON, SOE on-call for 16 hours
Planning: weekly, uploaded on-board not earlier than Thursday
Data return > 99.98%
Only 1 gap above 5 minutes
18/01/2017, Swarm B: ~1.2 h housekeeping data (mass memory upset)
Re-dumped all gaps > 5 minutes when data was available on-board
23 manual re-dumps performed since last DQW
Most gaps caused by antenna pattern at 20 degrees elevation

9. Routine operations status
From 15th October 2016 – 15th October 2017

10. Business as usual Flight Operation Status No, it was not a boring year Operational highlights since Edinburgh Exciting times ahead of us Future outlook

11. Flight Control Team Multiple team changes since last DQW Retired
Recovered
New Swarm+Cryosat SOM
Upgraded
EarthCare SOE +
Swarm On-call SOE
Upgraded
New payload SOE
deployed
New spacons
Jonny
Denise
Cryosat/Earthcare AOCS
migrated
Shared with Cryosat
Other teams supporting: FD, SDO, GS, SWS

12. “Train for the worst, hope for the best”
Flight Control Team
“Train for the worst, hope for the best”
Training is key to deal with turn-over
Large improvement of internal training procedures and material
Review of safe mode procedures and dedicated trainings
Complex and realistic contingency simulations: collision avoidance
2 days full scale exercise
Complex scenario with 2 spacecraft threaten at the same time
End-to-end simulation from manoeuvre preparation to execution
... and put as in the competition for best performance Oscar

13. Manoeuvres 2 constellation manoeuvres since last DQW
3 high risk collision warning events since last DQW
All three for Swarm-B
25/01/2017  Last minute NO GO
Very large media coverage!
Manoeuvre prepared and uplinked
Cancelled, probability decreased (> 10e-6)
16/05/2017  CAM
Chaser was an old friend: ERS-2
20g fuel, no slew required
24/07/2017  No need for CAM
Chaser was a cubesat from Planet
Risk quickly decreased
Twitter  610k views
Facebook  231k views
ESA Rocket Science blog  5700 page view

14. Anomalies No new genuine anomalies!
Only sporadic recurrence of already investigated anomalies
3 upsets of the on-board mass memory unit causing lost of data (~1h HK data)
2 autonomous STR reboots
35 ACC power-cycles
2 VFM upsets
Frequent GPSR data lost events (seasonal, a few times per week)
Result in TM packets wrongly time-stamped for 1s  1s gaps in science
Cause of these events understood, work-around under discussion

15. Anomalies 2 VFM upsets since last DQW
Single event upsets corrupt part of the VFM packets (same cause, different signatures)
Both cases solved by power cycling the unit
29/04/2017, Swarm-A
Science packets between 29th April 11:22 and 1st May 08:05 were lost
Average field in HK TM used by PDGS to recover the gap
11/09/2017, Swarm-B
Wrong time in science packets generated between 11/09 03:54 and 13/09
Actions taken to react faster to VFM upsets
Agreement to power-cycle VFM as soon as problem is detected
Procedures and on-call engineers training being improved
…but FOS can react only if anomaly is detected (no hints in HK TM in few cases)

16. Changes
New TM packets to provide thermal parameter for STR thermal correction
Preparations and validation of STR 2Hz operations
EFI “extended commissioning”
Covered in “EFI Operations” presentation
EFI heating test by facing the Sun
Swarm-B
7 days flying with non-nominal attitude
Dawn/dusk orbit (LTAN~6am)
Spring Equinox  optimum conditions
16° yaw angle bias
Achieved to increase EFI TII sensor temperature
Average temperature ~15 °C
…but far from ideal target (~50 °C)
…and large fuel penalty (~400g in total)

17. Mission planning New delivery of MPS software deployed in January 2017
Better interface with ESOC infrastructure for ground station planning
Bug fixing and better consistency checks
Partial simplification of planning rules and planning inputs
More and more complex planning rules deployed
Mainly linked to EFI operations (OPF interface with UoC)
Automatic planning of EFI TII daily inner dome scrubbing activities
Swarm-C test to set both EFI LP probes in high gain while EFI TII is in ready state
Dynamic EFI HK TM packets rate to monitor voltage spikes during ramp-up
 Covered in “EFI Operations” presentation

18. Business as usual Flight Operation Status No, it was not a boring year Operational highlights since Edinburgh Exciting times ahead of us Future outlook

19. Spacecraft ageing analysis
Systematic analysis of all units and payloads in preparation for the mission extension
Inputs from industry and payloads
No technical constraint that could prevent the satellites from lasting one full solar cycle (and more!) could be identified
Life limited items are not a concern
Battery  very small battery capacity fading until now (~5% since launch)
Solar panel  power consumption at lower end, large margin available
Some risks beyond 2024 identified
Availability of certain GPS signals

20. Mission extension
Impact of mission extension on FOS  preliminary analysis completed
Flight Dynamics: no problems foreseen
Data Systems: major updates to address HW & SW obsolescence + additional storage
Flight Control Team: no problems foreseen
Ground stations: no problems foreseen
ESOC infrastructure (computers, communications, ESTRACK…): no problems foreseen
FOS is ready to support the mission extension and to cover at least one full solar cycle, as recommended by the Swarm science community

21. Mission extension
Mission Control System would require major updates to support operations in the future
Hardware (both servers and clients) obsolescence
Replacement of MySQL based archives
Upgrade of the operating system
Update of the Mission Control System Application Software (SCOS-2000)
Deployment of new mission planning tool (if upgrade of existing one is not feasible)
Additional data storage for telemetry-parameter and telemetry-packet archives required
Long term performance of all data systems shall be taken into account
Preparatory activities to identify most efficient approach have started

22. Flight Dynamics acrobatics
Orbit evolution  extensive work done by Flight Dynamics
 Covered in “Constellation Status of the Swarm Mission” presentation
Flight Control Team is ready for manoeuvring campaigns
Review of orbit manoeuvre procedures completed
Team cross-training to support long demanding campaigns
Additional resources only required for special cases
Very close approach of the lower pair
Very low altitude operations

23. Flight Dynamics acrobatics
Several alternatives for close approach between A & C
Very close approach (same plane) increases collision risk
Special considerations in case of safe mode and CAM
FOS response time reduced
Additional monitoring passes
Extended on-call support from FCT and FD
More frequent manoeuvres to keep formation
As close as possible  weekly manoeuvres
Requires low solar activity  better now than later

24. Conclusion
FOS is ready for the extension!
Thank you!
Questions?