CCSDS Mission Operations

The Spacecraft Monitoring & Control (SM&C) Working Group of the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), which sees the active participation of 10 space agencies and of the Space Domain Task Force of the Object Management Group (OMG), is defining a service-oriented architecture consisting of a set of standard end-to-end services between functions resident on board a spacecraft or based on the ground, that are responsible for mission operations.

Identification of the problem

There is a general trend toward increasing mission complexity at the same time as increasing pressure to reduce the cost of mission operations, both in terms of initial deployment and recurrent expenditure. Closed, or ‘monolithic’ mission operations system architectures do not allow the re-distribution of functionality between space and ground, or between nodes of the ground system. This lack of architectural openness leads to: