AUTOMATING GROUND SYSTEM TO REDUCE MULTI-SATELLITE OPERATIONS COST

摘要

After the successful launch of the FORMOSAT-3 satellite constellation on middle of April 2006, the National Space Organization (NSPO) of Taiwan has entered into a new era of multi-mission satellites operations. In addition to the FORMOSAT-3 with 6 micro-satellite constellation, the remote sensing satellite FORMOSAT-2 which was launched on end of May 2004 had also been operated from the same ground system and operations team for more than two years. From single satellite (FORMOSAT-2) to the new satellite constellation (FORMOSAT-3) added in, the degree of complication and difficulty on the mission operations has increased dramatically. To effectively operate multi-mission satellites simultaneously and to reduce the mission operations cost, NSPO operations team has automated the ground system in many operations functions. The automation of these operations functions covers the pre-pass preparation, real-time operations and also post-pass data validation and distribution. The fruit of ground system automation has been realized. The workload is not multiplied even for operating multiple satellites simultaneously. In fact, due to less human interaction, the manpower has been reduced significantly and the operator error has also been minimized.