The Long Duration New Horizons (NH) Mission to Pluto, Its
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IAC-04-A.8.01 NEW HORIZONS MISSION TO PLUTO/CHARON: REDUCING COSTS OF A LONG-DURATION MISSION Alice F. Bowman Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD (USA) [email protected] Albert A. Chacos, Christopher C. DeBoy, R. Michael Furrow, Karl E. Whittenburg Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD (USA) [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] ABSTRACT The long-duration and long light-time delay of NASA’s planned New Horizons mission to Pluto, its moon Charon, and the extended mission to one or more Kuiper Belt Objects poses unique chal- lenges to mission operations, especially in this time of limited space exploration budgets. A num- ber of courses of action can be followed to reduce wear on Observatory hardware, reduce opera- tions staffing costs, and reduce Deep Space Network usage and costs without sacrificing the health and safety of the Observatory or risking the successful completion of the primary mission. Major components in this system are an autonomy subsystem that can react quickly enough to safe the Observatory when it is out of contact with the ground station; the use of a beacon to indi- cate the health of the Observatory during the dormant phases of the mission; command loading and verification strategies to accommodate the long light-time delays; and the combining of op- erations personnel to take advantage of similarities of Observatories, supporting ground station setup, and procedures. When planned early in the mission development phase, these compo- nents are easily integrated into the operations concept and Observatory hardware to form a co- hesive plan to mitigate cost and risk. Cost reduction measures for long-duration missions, such as those planned for New Horizons, enable funding for a greater number of equally important space exploration missions from a limited space exploration budget. 1. BACKGROUND design, development, and mission opera- tions are delegated to the Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory The New Horizons (NH) mission is part of (JHU/APL) in Laurel, MD, USA. The Tom- NASA’s New Frontiers Program. It was baugh Science Operations Center (TSOC), awarded in the fall of 2001, with a start date named for the discoverer of Pluto, would of January 2002 at a cost of less than serve as the center of scientific research $600M. Dr. S. Alan Stern of Southwest Re- and data repository for this mission. search Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, CO, Throughout this paper, the term “Observa- USA, is the mission’s Principal Investigator tory” is defined as the integrated spacecraft (PI) and is responsible for the overall NH and science instrument payloads. mission. Responsibilities of Observatory 1 TIMEFRAME The primary mission would be to conduct a MISSION (nominal- OBJECTIVE detailed first reconnaissance flyby of the PHASE planned) Pluto/Charon system, with observations KBO 1 80 days pre and Science Observa- planned to begin 150 days prior to and 60 (extended 90 days post KBO tion Final Rehears- days after closest approach (C/A). The ex- mission) 1 C/A als, Navigation & tended mission would be to conduct a flyby Targeting, Science Collection, Data of one or more Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). Return The NASA decision to fund the extended Cruise 4 91 days post KBO Beacon-Hibernation, mission would be made sometime after (extended 1 C/A to 81 days Annual Checkouts, launch of the NH Observatory. Table 1 gives mission) pre KBO 2 Precession Maneu- vers, Navigation & an overview of the currently planned NH Targeting mission phases. KBO 2 80 days pre and Science Observa- (extended 90 days post KBO tion Final Rehears- The NH Observatory primary launch window mission) 2 C/A als, Navigation & Targeting, Science would span 35 days from January 11 to Feb- Collection, Data ruary 14, 2006, giving C/A arrivals from July Return 2015 to July 2020. If launched in the first 23 days of the launch window, a Jupiter Gravity Assist (JGA) would be used to reduce flight time to Pluto/Charon by as much as 5 years; if launched in the last 12 days, the trajectory would be a direct flight to Pluto/Charon. Fwd LGA (+Y) Launch would be from Cape Canaveral, FL, MGA (+Y) 2.1m HGA USA, using an Atlas 551 with a Star 48B PEPSSI upper stage. Figure 1 depicts the current F-8 RTG configuration of the NH Observatory. SWAP Table 1 NH Mission Phase Overview Thrusters TIMEFRAME MISSION Sun Sensors (nominal- OBJECTIVE PHASE planned) Heat Shield Launch & Launch + 60 days Observatory (Obs.) Thrusters Early Opera- (Jan–Mar 2006) Checkout, Naviga- LORRI tions (LEOps) tion & Targeting SDC Cruise 1 Cruise following Instrument Commis- PERSI/Alice Star Trackers LEOps to 61 days sioning, Flight Tests, PERSI/Ralph before Jupiter C/A Navigation & Target- (Mar–Dec 2006) ing, etc. Figure 1 NH Observatory Current Con- Jupiter 60 days pre to 40 JGA, Navigation & figuration days post JGA Targeting, Jupiter (Jan–Apr 2007) Science Cruise 2 41 days post JGA Beacon-Hibernation, to 201 days pre Annual Checkouts, Pluto/Charon C/A Precession Maneu- (Apr 2007–Jan vers, Navigation & 2015) Targeting, Re- hearsal 2. INTRODUCTION Pluto/Charon 200 days pre to Science Observa- 14 days post tion Final Rehears- Pluto/Charon C/A als, Navigation & The NH mission operations team (MOps) is (Jan–Jul 2015) Targeting, Science expected to face a number of unique opera- Collection, First- tional challenges as a result of the long- Look Data Return duration and light-time delay of this mission. Pluto/Charon 15 days to 270 Return of Recognition and mitigation of these chal- Data Retrieval days post Pluto/ Pluto/Charon Sci- Charon C/A (Aug ence Data, Naviga- lenges began from the onset. To help ad- 2015–Apr 2016) tion & Targeting dress the long duration and the subsequent Cruise 3 271 days post Beacon-Hibernation, Deep Space Network (DSN) usage and (extended Pluto/Charon C/A Annual Checkouts, costs, a beacon-hibernation phase would be mission) to 81 days pre Precession maneu- KBO 1 C/A vers, Navigation & implemented for the cruise between JGA Targeting and Pluto/Charon C/A denoted as Cruise 2. 2 To address the long light-time delay that will gency telemetry. Dormant periods would be reach approximately 4.5 hours one way at when the Observatory is in a passive spin- Pluto/Charon, an autonomy safing strategy hibernation (PS-H) state with no active G&C and a modification to nominal command control. The majority of time during Cruise 2 load and verification would be implemented. would be spent in PS-H with the operations Both of these mitigations would result in team relying upon the beacon tone to indi- changes to the standard staffing concept of cate the health of the Observatory. In the the mission operations team and would be current concept, the Observatory could be done with minimal risk to the primary mis- placed in PS-H for up to 11 months at a sion objectives occurring, at the earliest, 9.5 time. Cruise 2 would last approximately 7.5 years after launch. years, assuming a 2015 Pluto/Charon arri- val. 3. MISSION DURATION 3.1.1 Active Periods Because of the long duration of this mission and the resulting relative cost of DSN sup- Active periods would comprise about 2 port as compared with the total mission cost, months of each year. Planned periods of as well as the number of spacecraft compet- Observatory activity would include preces- ing for the DSN stations, it was decided dur- sion maneuvers, TCMs, and annual check- ing the concept study phase that DSN costs outs. Precession maneuvers would be con- and usage would be minimized in order for ducted to maintain MGA pointing to Earth for the proposal to be considered by NASA. beacon tone transmission/reception and One way of reducing costs is to reduce the emergency commanding at 7.8 bps. The number of required DSN passes by placing high gain antenna (HGA), MGA, and forward the Observatory into a beacon-hibernation low gain antenna (LGA) would be co-aligned mode. Deep Space 1 first demonstrated the (Figure 1). Another precess to the edge of feasibility of using a set of beacon tones to the MGA would be conducted before the indicate a spacecraft’s health.1 During the pointing drifts outside of the HGA deadband, Deep Space 1 technical demonstration, one (Figure 2). These maneuvers would require of four beacon tones was transmitted for the DSN 70-m antenna support of one 8-hour short periods between telemetry contacts. pass per day for a week, for a total of ap- Based on these results, a beacon- proximately 504 hours of 70-m antenna hibernation concept was developed for the time. Preliminary analysis indicates that ap- NH mission, utilizing eight beacon tones proximately nine precession maneuvers (four each on two carriers), with one “green” would be required outside of the annual and seven “red” tones, each indicating a checkout periods. While TCMs require DSN specific Observatory state of health. support of one 8-hour pass per day for a week, all needed TCMs would be planned to 3.1 Cruise 2 occur during the annual checkout periods. The mission operational concept for Cruise 2 (the phase between Jupiter and Pluto/Charon) is to have “active periods” and n co “dormant periods”. Active periods would be ea Precess when the Observatory is in either an active B GA Angle spin or a three-axis stabilized state, meaning M that Guidance and Control (G&C) is control- ling the Observatory attitude. (See the Appendix for a discussion of NH Observa- H tory modes and states.) The active periods GA Cmd would include planned precession maneu- vers to orient the medium gain antenna (MGA) to Earth, trajectory correction ma- neuvers (TCMs), annual checkouts, and Figure 2 NH Precession Angles response to “red” beacon tones or emer- 3 The annual checkout period would be de- requiring attention, the autonomy rule facility voted to accessing the NH Observatory sub- (ARF) would initiate one of seven “red” bea- system and instrument states of health, ob- con tones, disable the preloaded weekly taining navigation data to support any “green” tone, and broadcast the “red” tone needed TCMs and the next period of PS-H, continuously.