Resourcesat-1 mission planning, analysis and operations—Outline of key components

Resourcesat-1 is a global mission which provides continuity to the earth resources monitoring missions earlier launched by India. Resourcesat-1 is designed to have an improvement in the payload camera characteristics providing multi-spectral imaging capability in high resolution. This paper provides an overview of mission planning and analysis aiding spacecraft configuration, pre-launch simulations and operations, early-orbit operations and the on-orbit operational guidelines for Resourcesat-1. Mission planning involved integrating and inter-relating the efforts of space and ground systems in realizing the operational system which provides the continuity of satellite-based remote sensing data to the user community. Mission analysis related to contiguous imaging requirement of LISS-4 payload, resulted in a spacecraft yaw steering during imaging operations. Pre-launch simulation involved development of a software spacecraft simulator to be used as a tool for network tests, training of spacecraft operation personnel and validating the spacecraft health monitoring software. The required operations that were performed on the spacecraft to characterize and establish the on-orbit configuration for the normalization of daily operations are addressed in the sections relating to early orbit operations and on-orbit operational guidelines.