Operations

The Orbits and Operations team is responsible for orbit planning, mission operations, and ground control with the Cayenne HETE-2 ground station. The orbit selected includes an altitude increase, a plane change, and an altitude decrease followed by an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. STK and MATLAB were used to plan the orbit.

Mission operations include detailed plans of each phase of the mission: pre-launch, launch, on-orbit deployment, commissioning, normal operations, and decommissioning. The OSMV will perform altitude and inclination changes in LEO.

Ground control includes a command computer, a simulation computer, a data-processing computer, and a team of operators. When data is received, the computers will run student-written code to ensure that the satellite is functioning as planned and that the data fall within acceptable ranges. Operators will analyze the output of these computers and troubleshoot problems on the spacecraft. The ground operations team consists of technical experts (including graduate students, professors, and highly trained undergraduates) and UROP students.

Most recently, the team has been writing code for the ground station and the satellite on-orbit, and producing an operator's manual.

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