Development of a preoperational analysis software for the Bepi Colombo mission

Abstract: BepiColombo is a mission prepared by the European Space Agency (ESA) in cooperation with the Japanese space agency (ISAS/JAXA) that will be launched in July 2014 for exploring the planet Mercury. The BepiColombo flight control team working at the European Space Operations Centre (ESA/ESOC) is responsible for preparing the mission operations before the spacecraft is launched. To get to Mercury the BepiColombo spacecraft will need to use a specific thrust profile that is still under definition and is likely to undergo numerous iterations between now and arrival at Mercury. For every iteration the flight control team needs to carry out a series of pre
operational activities that include the generation of a long-term ground station utilization plan and a data return analysis. This thesis presents the development of a software tool capable of automating these activities.