Chapter 2 Mission Operations 2 . 1 Mission Operations Preparation

The success of a space mission depends not only on a properly designed and built space segment and the successful launch via a launch segment. It also depends on the ground segment and successful mission operations, carried out by a team of experts using the infrastructure and processes of the mission’s ground segment. Its organization and design as well as the assembly, integration, test, and verification (AITV) are therefore equally important as the respective activities of the space and launch segment. A ground segment thereby comprises a ground system, i.e., infrastructure, hardware, software, and processes, and a team that conducts the necessary operations on the space segment. This subchapter describes the tasks and activities that are necessary for the preparation of mission operations, i.e., what must be done by whom and in which order to enable mission operations of a particular space mission. It gives the questions that arise automatically when analyzing the requirements of a mission and how these questions are answered with a design based on available resources and respecting project-specific constraints. It is organized as follows: