Ground System for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Mission Observatory Mission
Date
2005-11-10Author
Tann, Hun K.
Pages, Raymond J.
Silva, Christopher J.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has recently completed its Critical Design Review
(CDR) of a new dual Ka and S-band ground system for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)
Mission. SDO, the flagship mission under the new Living with a Star Program Office, is one of
GSFC's most recent large-scale in-house missions. The observatory is scheduled for launch in
August 2008 from the Kennedy Space Center aboard an Atlas-5 expendable launch vehicle.
Unique to this mission is an extremely challenging science data capture requirement. The
mission is required to capture 95% of all observation opportunities with a completeness of
99.99%. Due to the continuous, high volume (150 Mbps) science data rate, no on-board
storage of science data will be implemented on this mission. With the observatory placed in a
geo-synchronous orbit at 36,000 kilometers within view of dedicated ground stations, the ground
system will in effect implement a “real-time” science data pipeline with appropriate data
accounting, data storage, data distribution, data recovery, and automated system failure
detection and correction to keep the science data flowing continuously to three separate
Science Operations Centers (SOCs). Data storage rates of ~ 42 Tera-bytes per month are
expected. The Mission Operations Center (MOC) will be based at GSFC and is designed to be
highly automated. Three SOCs will share in the observatory operations, each operating their
own instrument. Remote operations of a multi-antenna ground station in White Sands, New
Mexico from the MOC is part of the design baseline.