XMM Newton 1000 Orbits: More than 50.000 Hours Pointing at X-ray Sources
- Paper number
IAC-06-D1.5.08
- Author
Mr. Andrea Guidi, SciSys GmbH / ESA-ESOC, Germany
- Coauthor
Mr. Oscar Ojanguren, European Space Agency/ESOC, Germany
- Year
2006
- Abstract
During its fifth year of smooth operations, on the 26th of May 2005, XMM Newton entered its 1000th revolution, after having travelled around the Earth more than 40 million Km. The achievement is enhanced by the fact that XMM Newton is performing fully nominal, operating in its platform prime units and with scientific instruments having no significant degradation, which opens hope for many more years of useful science to come. XMM Newton is an ESA cornerstone mission, the spacecraft design and hardware implementation, both from platform and instruments point of view, posed unprecedented challenges. A critical review of the XMM Newton system is written on the occasion of the 1000 orbits milestone, focusing on mission highlights with emphasis on events, anomalies and problems encountered in both the Spacecraft and the Ground Segment. Objective of this paper is to put together a comprehensive document of the main activities carried out during the different phases the S/C went through: LEOP, Commissioning plus Early Scientific Phase (in which the Flight Control team and Flight Dynamic team calibrated and optimized the performances of S/C and GS) and finally the Routine Operations. For this last phase, accent will be on to the platform perspective, reporting the strategy followed in order to effectively operate such a complex Scientific Mission. Necessary routine operations, such as maintenance and calibration of subsystems, will be listed and shortly described. Moreover, a number of non-routine and contingency operational experiences will also be briefly commented. The document is written with our desire to share with the Space Community the XMM Newton experience, both in its operational and design areas.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-06-D1.5.08.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.