Space: Operational management of unmanned missions E-Book

Nebil Cinar

• Herausgeber: via tolino media
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The media reports about the missions of space agencies, in which telescopes on spacecraft produce incredible images of galaxies with their stars and planets and scientists gain new insights into the formation and structure of the universe. But how do such missions come about and how do they work? Who are the people who make these missions possible and who carry them out? The author Nebil Çinar works as a spacecraft controller for the European Space Agency (ESA) and controls four such missions. In this book, he gives the reader an insight into a world that was previously only accessible to a privileged few. He introduces the different types of missions carried out by the space agencies, explains the process of a mission, explains the structure and function of a spacecraft and describes the work of the people in the control centres. Without focusing on a specific mission, the daily work of the spacecraft controller and the role of the flight control team is explained in general terms.

Leseprobe

Inhaltsverzeichnis

About the author

Index of images

Introduction

Missions

Mission Operation

Spacecraft design

Operational business

Impressum

Picture 1 Front page: ESA / Euclid

About the author

Picture 2 ESA / 2019 Award ceremony for the team performance of the Gaia Mission team

Nebil Çinar was born in Cologne in 1971, is married and has a son.

After studying computer science in Darmstadt, he first came into contact with the space industry through the company Vega Deutschland GmbH in Darmstadt. Initially working in other departments, he later moved to the space department and worked on software projects for ESA. During this time, Vega Deutschland GmbH was taken over by Telespazio Deutschland GmbH.

He later had the opportunity to work for ESA himself, and since 2013 has been working as a Spacecraft Controller, or Spacon, on various missions. Initially assigned to the Gaia mission, he later joined the Integral, XMM-Newton and, most recently, Euclid missions.

Over the years he has gained a wealth of knowledge and experience that has enabled him to look at space travel from a completely new perspective. The motivation behind this book is to share this knowledge and experience with readers, to give them an insight into a world that has only been accessible to a privileged few.

Index of images

Picture 1 Front page: ESA / Euclid1

Picture 2 ESA / 2019 Award ceremony for the team performance of the Gaia Mission team2

Picture 3 ESA / Sentinel-18

Picture 4 ESA / Solar Orbiter9

Picture 5 ESA / ExoMars Orbiter9

Picture 6 ESA / Gaia10

Picture 7 ESA / XMM-Newton11

Picture 8 ESA / Lagrange points12

Picture 9 ESA / Annual General Meeting14

Picture 10 ESA / Euclid’s NISP Instrument15

Picture 11 ESA / Euclid electromagnetic compatibility test16

Picture 12 ESA / Rosetta engineering model17

Picture 13 ESA / MCR (Main Control Room)18

Picture 14 ESA / The Jupiter Mission Control Room at Europa's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana19

Picture 15 ESA / Euclid in front of one of the two fairings20

Picture 16 ESA / Euclid launch with a Falcon 9 rocket20

Picture 17 ESA / Sentinel-3 separation from the last stage of the rocket21

Picture 18 ESA / Solar Panels when unfolding22

Picture 19 ESA / Aeolus breaks apart and burns up on re-entry into the atmosphere24

Picture 20 ESA / Deep Space Antenna in New Norcia in Australia26

Picture 21 ESA / Integral design28

Picture 22 ESA / Test ignition of a thruster29

Picture 23 ESA / Momentum wheels29

Picture 24 ESA / Cold gas nozzles30

Picture 25 ESA / HGA (High Gain Antenna) and LGA (Low Gain Antenna)32

Picture 26 ESA / Gaia service module with phase-controlled antenna (red circle)33

Picture 27 ESA / Solar panels from the Sentinel-2A35

Picture 28 ESA / Integral with its instruments37

Picture 29 ESA / Integral: Here you can see me working at the Integral console39

Introduction

The desire to look beyond the horizon and explore the unknown has been with us since time immemorial. The greatest fascination is undoubtedly the view of the stars. In our imaginations, we have long since embarked on a journey through the universe with the help of science fiction novels, films and series. And even if we are not yet ready to board a spaceship and explore the universe, we have been using telescopes for centuries to peer into the deepest corners of space from afar. Starting with very primitive instruments, telescopes have become increasingly powerful and high-resolution.

In order to observe even more distant objects, higher resolution telescopes are needed. However, this quickly reaches its limits due to the interference by the atmosphere. This has led to the idea of putting telescopes on spacecraft, where they can take high-resolution images in the dark and without atmospheric interference.

The Hubble Space Telescope was born. Many other space telescopes followed, such as the James Webb Telescope or Euclid.

There are both manned and unmanned missions. The best-known manned missions are currently the International Space Station (ISS) and NASA's upcoming lunar mission, the Artemis programme. Unmanned missions include spacecraft and probes, as well as rovers currently exploring the surface of the Moon and Mars.

A distinction is made between commercial, profit-orientated missions, which are financed from the revenues generated, and scientific missions, which are financed by public funds.

Publicly funded missions for scientific research missions are carried out by space agencies. The best known of these are probably NASA and ESA. However, space agencies from other countries are now also playing an increasingly important role. For example, the Japanese space agency JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), which sent the SLIM probe to the Moon. But China and India are also carrying out missions to the Moon.

This book describes the operation of unmanned missions that are in the service of science. Before doing so, however, a description of the missions, the elements of mission operation and the design of the spacecraft is provided for a better understanding.

The field of operation of these missions can be roughly divided into three groups:

Earth observations:

These are missions that operate in an orbital path around the Earth and carry out observations and measurements on Earth.

Picture 3 ESA / Sentinel-1

Interplanetary missions:

These are missions to the planets and their moons in our solar system. But they also include missions that explore the sun.

Picture 4 ESA / Solar Orbiter

Picture 5 ESA / ExoMars Orbiter

Astronomical missions:

Observations outside our solar system are carried out here. In particular, telescopes are used that take images in various areas of the electromagnetic spectrum (from X-ray to gamma and visual to infrared).

Picture 6 ESA / Gaia

While Gaia photographs in the visual range and maps around one per cent of the stars in the Milky Way, XMM-Newton photographs in the X-ray range.

Picture 7 ESA / XMM-Newton

While older missions orbit the Earth on an elliptical path and take images, newer missions orbit a calculated point far beyond the Earth. These Lagrange points represent points where the gravitational conditions between the Sun and the Earth are optimal, allowing the spacecraft to orbit with minimal fuel consumption. Currently, L1 is used for observations of the Sun and L2 for observations outside the Solar System.

Picture 8 ESA / Lagrange points

Lagrange points L1 to L5 in our solar system with the sun and the earth: L4 runs ahead of the planet, L5 behind.

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