SMART-1: Europe's Lunar Mission Paving the way for New Cost Effective Ground Operations (rcsgso)

Abstract

RESUME Smart-1 is the first of a series of ESA Small Missions for Advance Research and Technology where elements of the platform and the payload technology have been conceived as a demonstration for future cornerstone missions and an early opportunity for science. It was launched on 27th of September 2003 and spiraled out over a 14-month period until being captured by the Moon on 15/11/2004, thus successfully achieving the primary objective set to demonstrate Solar Electric Propulsion. The paper will show the pros and contras in some of the choices made for Smart-1 together with the developments and the solutions implemented to mitigate the problems found during the mission: Impact of on-board problems on operations Ground Segment automation Keeping the mission control team reduced The increased importance of the Mission Planning System Fast distribution of spacecraft data through internet for anomaly identification and analysis Summary of lessons learnt