Operations Concept for TC & TM Applied to Rovers on the Moon

The paper is written in the context of the Central Case Project (CCP) of the Master Programme SpaceTech 2016. The CCP studies in detail the possibility of running a viable space business by operating rovers on the Moon with gaming (entertainment) and scientific payloads. The purpose of the paper is to focus on the operational aspects covering the TC (Telecommands) and TM (Telemetry) of the rovers. The monitoring and control solution selected eventually shall be capable of effectively operating all the different subsystems of the rovers; shall be in-line with the general concept of operations and with the main operations scenarios; and shall be compliant with the relevant system requirements allocated to operations. The paper shows that the ECSS PUS (European Cooperation for Space Standardisation Packet Utilisation Standard) is a mature standard whose services are capable to support the lunar rovers. Certain aspects, mainly video data and navigation, are not directly implemented, so new tailored PUS services could be created. The preferred alternative however is using the new CCSDS MO (Consultative Committee for Space Data System Mission Operations) services. They cover the weak points of the PUS, offering additional benefits with the set of telerobotic services. A risk related to the use of MO is that the standard is not fully consolidated yet, with some of the books being currently reviewed. Special attention shall be given to potential schedule delays when coding the high-level programming languages and to the efficiency of the message encoding at lower levels to reduce the volume of data traffic. Some MO demonstration missions such as OPS-SAT and METERON are paving the way to its prompt operational usage. On ground, the paper shows the maturity of SCOS-2000® (Spacecraft Control and Operation System) and its applicability to the lunar rovers. It has been used operationally for more than 15 years in a multitude of missions such as Jason-CS/Sentinel-6, Sentinel-3, Galileo, Mars Express, Rosetta, etc. SCOS-2000® naturally supports the implementation of the ECSS PUS services but, as advocated by the OPS-SAT mission, SCOS-2000® can be also adapted to support the new CCSDS MO services. EGS-CC (European Ground Systems - Common Core) is the evolution of SCOS-2000®, expected to be used by all ESA missions by 2020. With a launch of the lunar rovers expected by the end of 2021, the latest developments of the EGS-CC shall be closely monitored.