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http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12386/30121
Title: | BepiColombo Venus Flyby Science Operations Feasibility Analysis | Authors: | De La Fuente, Sara Montagnon, Elsa MANGANO, VALERIA Rodriguez, Pedro Andres, Rafael Casale, Mauro Benkhoff, Johannes Zender, Joe |
Issue Date: | 2018 | Volume: | 15th International Conference on Space Operations | Abstract: | BepiColombo is an interdisciplinary ESA mission to explore the planet Mercury in cooperation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission consists of 2 spacecraft, ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) that carry in total 17 science payloads for the investigation of Mercury’s structure, interior, composition, morphology, formation, evolution and environment. The Mercury Composite Spacecraft (MCS) made of MPO, MMO, a Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) and a sunshield (MOSIF) will be launched on an escape trajectory that will bring it into heliocentric orbit on its way to Mercury. During the cruise of 7.2 years toward the inner part of the Solar System, BepiColombo will make 1 flyby to the Earth, 2 to Venus, and 6 to Mercury. Only part of its payload will be obstructed by the sunshield and the cruise spacecraft configuration, so that the flybys will allow operations of many instruments, like: spectrometers at many wavelengths, accelerometer, radiometer, ion and electron detectors. A scientific working group (VFBWG, Venus Fly-by Working Group) has recently formed inside the BepiColombo community to identify potentially interesting scientific cases and to promote collaborations during the Venus flybys. At the same time, analyses of science operations requests has been carried out by the Science Ground Segment (SGS) at ESAC and the Operational Ground Segment (OGS) at ESOC to help scientists in the comprehension of feasibility of proposed investigations. The analysis of science observations includes special spacecraft pointing feasibility analysis taking into account the attitude constraints. During interplanetary cruise and outside electric propulsion, the default attitude of MCS is with +Y axis pointed to the Sun. The spacecraft attitude is then adjusted by ground around the sun line such that the angular momentum loading is minimized while ground contact is maximized during ground station passes. For the short duration of scientific interest around the Venus closest approaches, however, the need for angular momentum load minimization can be relaxed and it is possible to offset the Sun direction in the spacecraft composite +YZ plane. The SGS at ESAC developed a tool that allows to check the possibility of observing Venus in different spacecraft configurations for different instruments, for example finding out when Venus is inside a given instrument FoV. With that tool and based on the scientific instruments pointing requests, candidate pointing timelines were extracted, indicating that it is possible to find a suitable spacecraft composite attitude to provide observing opportunities to most instruments requiring specific spacecraft pointing. In addition, the OGS at ESOC analysed the impact of the received scientific requests on power balance, thermal balance and data return and found well within the as-designed capability of the spacecraft. This paper includes a summary of the scientific requests, the analysis carried out by both SGS and OGS and the results of the analysis. | Conference Name: | 2018 SpaceOps Conference | Conference Place: | Marseille, France | Conference Date: | 28 May- 1 June, 2018 | URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12386/30121 | URL: | https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/book/10.2514/MSPOPS18 https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2018-2656 |
ISBN: | 978-1-62410-562-3 | DOI: | 10.2514/6.2018-2656 | Fulltext: | open |
Appears in Collections: | 3.01 Contributi in Atti di convegno |
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6.2018-2656.pdf | Pdf editoriale | 5.45 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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