News

Pasadena, CA - MissionSpace announced today that the Advanced Mission Executive (AME) will provide backup downlink capabilities for the launch and early operations phases of the CloudSat mission; an experimental satellite that uses millimeter wave radar to study cloud depth, density and precipitation.

Developed by the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), Ball Aerospace, and the Air Force, CloudSat is scheduled to launch April 21st from Vandenberg AFB. An AME-based backup downlink system, located at JPL, Pasadena, CA, and at MissionSpace, is currently configured to provide downlink functions for the mission, enabling operators at JPL to monitor CloudSat's health and status.

In early 2005, MissionSpace was initially contracted by JPL to provide CloudSat with critical mission data verification and validation support during the ground test phase of the project. As the launch date drew closer, MissionSpace was further requested to provide the mission with backup downlink capabilities. In response, in less than 3 months and for very little additional funding, MissionSpace delivered to JPL an AME-based downlink system that fully duplicated the primary downlink system at the RSC at Kirtland AFB.

To achieve this rapid turnaround, the MissionSpace reused modules from previous AME deployments, quickly developed several new modules, and established over a dozen separate test configurations to provide operators with both Engineering Unit (EU) converted and binary data products. These tasks would have been impossible to achieve on such a short time scale and at such a low cost if traditional ground system integration methodologies were used.

According to Mark Rokey, the CloudSat mission manager, "If it were not for the AME's modular, plug-and-play architecture, this task would have required many more months and significantly more funding to accomplish."

By providing a modular integration and data processing infrastructure, the AME provided CloudSat with a generic framework that enabled the rapid development and deployment of a distributed backup downlink system at a fraction of the traditional cost. From ground test and through to flight operations, MissionSpace continues to provide ongoing support to this important weather-observing mission.