The current budget environment of low cost spacecraft and operations support drives the need for innovative methods for maximizing science return while reducing the risk to the missions. The solution includes increased automation of routine activities, anomaly detection, data gathering and problem notification. NASA's Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) spacecraft is a low-earth orbiter studying the influences of the sun and humans on the least explored and understood region of Earth's atmosphere. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) built and is operating the TIMED spacecraft for NASA. Mission Operations developed techniques for automating the contact activities, monitoring and evaluating the downloaded data and paging operators when problems are discovered. During each contact, two expert systems monitor the housekeeping telemetry for anomalous conditions and SSR dump status. Page messages are sent for critical conditions, giving mission operations immediate information on the spacecraft status. The automated system increases capacity, efficiency and timeliness of the operation. The system allows autonomous execution of passes. Currently approximately 50% of the contacts are staffed and 50% are unstaffed. These additional contacts deliver more timely notification of anomalous situations as well as more timely science data. To support all of these contacts without an. automated system, at least 13 fulltime mission operators would be required instead of the current staffing level of 7.
