Challenges in Designing an Automated System for Planning Spacecraft Activities

In July 2013 the Alphasat spacecraft was launched: in addition to its main commercial payload, it hosted four Technology Demonstration Payloads (TDPs). These payloads were provided by several research institutes, with the aim of demonstrating new technologies in an in-orbit setting. To optimize this opportunity, coordination of the different, the possibly conflicting, payload operations was required. To answer this coordination need, a software system, the TECO System, was developed. The system is completely automated (i.e., Without any human intervention in the nominal case), and it has been designed to keep all the different partners (system and TDP operators) actively in the loop while coordinating and optimizing the different requests. This paper discusses some of the issues faced during the design and development of the system.