SOPS: The science operations planning system for the first ESA lunar mission SMART-1

One of the major tasks of the SMART-1 Science and Technology Operation Coordination of the European Space Agency is planning and coordinating the operational activities of the scientific payloads on SMART-1. To fulfil the scientific objectives of this mission and to achieve an optimal scientific output, it is necessary to analyse the possible science opportunities in each phase of the mission and to select and prioritize the operations of the scientific payloads with respect to the corresponding scientific goals. The Science Operations Planning System, SOPS, is the name of a set of new, generic software tools, which is being developed at the Research and Scientific Support Department of ESA for this purpose and is being currently used on Smart-1. It will help the science operation engineers and the payload teams by providing them with tools and information to ease and speed the process of decision making and planning. SOPS is composed of two major groups of components: The first group, the so called science operations knowledge base, provides the infrastructure to store all the relevant information about the operations of scientific payloads and various sophisticated interfaces to access this information through remote computers. The second group consists of a number of tools and clients, which access and use the information, contained in the knowledge base, to carry out different tasks such as analyzing/visualizing the possible science opportunities for scientific payloads, planning the communication passes and payload observations, archiving performed payload operations and generating interface documents and files for other existing planning tools at RSSD and for the flight control team.