ROSETTA ON-BOARD SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE AT THE CONTROL CENTRE:A WAY TO REDUCE OPERATIONS COST

摘要

The International Rosetta mission is a cornerstonernmission of the ESA Scientific Programme. It consists ofrnan interplanetary probe, launched on 2nd March 2004rnon a 10.5 years journey to rendezvous with a comet.rnOnce reached the nucleus the Rosetta probe will orbit itrnfrom distances down to a few kilometres for about 1.5rnyears. It will also deliver a small Lander module,rnPhilae, onto its surface.rnThe long duration of the mission, the high level ofrnautonomous processes implemented in software onboardrnand the characteristics of the mission to anrnunknown environment, calling for maximumrnoperational flexibility, have driven the ESArnmanagement to transfer the full on-board softwarernmaintenance responsibility to the Flight Control Teamrnat ESOC. This refers mainly to the spacecraft avionics,rnwhich include various subsystems, controlled byrndifferent processors. Responsibility for on-boardrnsoftware maintenance has been transferred to ESOC inrndifferent stages and the full transfer was only completedrnabout 10 months after launch.rnOn-board software maintenance experience of the prelaunchrnphases and the first few months in flight isrnanalysed from the point of view of the cost effectivenessrnand flexibility of this solution.