For a very innovative mission, the company wanted to explore operations concepts to derive a comprehensive strategy on the implementation of their ground segment. While they are extremely capable with space segment design, they didn’t have enough technical, strategic and regulatory expertise about satellite operations & ground segment design.
Ruwàh Consulting offered strategic engineering support and delivered a detailed ground segment & operations feasibility study. The following steps were provided:
1. Review existing mission concept & space segment design documentation (providing constructive recommendations).
2. Mature further the mission Concept of Operations, from the perspectives of space-ground communications, space activities and ground operations / interactions.
3. Explore mission operations concepts with various trades-off on critical aspects, incl. frequency bands and specific regulatory measures to consider.
4. Develop an optimal operations strategy that fits the company’s needs and goals of scalability, lean management and affordability.
5. Carry out a preliminary mission analysis with modelling ground stations, to satisfy mission requirements in terms of data budget and latency.
6. Perform a preliminary ground segment architecture design, covering functional, software stack, physical infrastructure incl. Mission Control Centre and the associated network architecture.
7. Define key mission and ground segment requirements to guide future detailed development phase.
8. Identify potential risks to the programme.
Thanks to the consultant’s breadth of ground segment & operations expertise, the company was delivered insightful workshops and informal dialogue with the project team, as well as a very detailed and comprehensive report.
The team appreciated the high level of details provided, which enabled them to better own the subject and to make informed strategic decisions.
