Ground Segment Management on an International Student Project
- Paper number
IAC-07-E1.I.04
- Author
Mr. David Vicente Alarcon, Spain
- Year
2007
- Abstract
The European Student Earth Orbiter (ESEO) project consists on the development, design and construction of a real satellite mission, in which more than 250 students from many nationalities grouped in more than 25 teams work together to achieve this dream. Due to the large size of the project, different segments have been created. One of them is the ground segment composed by 5 teams: 2 ground stations, the operators, the mission control computer and the database. All of them belong to different cultures, which leads in difficult problems on schedules, planning, dates, different way of thinking, and probably the most important: neither being in the same place nor speaking the same language. These reasons require having a management that works closely with them, sets several rules and requirements, and watches over the integrity and communication of the segment. To help this management, a new working team has been created called ground-sys. Its members are one of each of the five teams, plus a coordinator named by the project manager. And by working closely together through internet tools (apart from the project required ones) this team makes sure the communication between the teams is constant and renewed, and also coordinates the creation of certain documents that require the collaboration of various teams in the segment. One of the main differences in the ground segment with its precursor project, SSETI Express, within the Student Space Exploration \& Technology Initiative (SSETI), is that the ground stations, the control computer and the database will not be in the same location. This means that communication is critical to have everything working perfectly before the mission stars, since it would be really difficult to solve any problems while the satellite is already functioning. Therefore, it is necessary to have a redundant and checked system by the time the mission starts. Despite of this, it will also be necessary to have a representing person from all teams in the control room, but each location should be controlled by its team; so it can be easy to communicate in case of some failure occurs. So far, the creation the ground-sys team has increased the effectiveness of the segment; since now problems like 2 teams working on the same issue in parallel fields of action don't occur anymore. If this is enough to manage a European satellite project based on communication through internet tool, time will tell.
- Abstract document