Mars Express spacecraft: design and development solutions for affordable planetary missions

The spacecraft designed to support the ESA Mars Express mission and its science payloads is customized around an existing avionics well suited to environmental and operational constraints of deep-space interplanetary missions. The reuse of the avionics initially developed for the Rosetta cometary program thanks to an adequate ESA cornerstone program budget paves the way for affordable planetary missions. The costs and schedule benefits inherited from reuse of up-to-date avionics solutions validated in the frame of other programs allows to focus design and development efforts of a new mission over the specific areas which requires customization, such as spacecraft configuration and payload resources. This design approach, combined with the implementation of innovative development and management solutions have enabled to provide the Mars Express mission with an highly capable spacecraft for a remarkably low cost. The different spacecraft subsystems are all based on adequate design solutions. The development plan ensures an exhaustive spacecraft verification in order to perform the mission at minimum risk. New management schemes contribute to maintain the mission within its limited funding. Experience and heritage gained on this program will allow industry to propose to Scientists and Agencies high performance, low-cost solutions for the ambitious Mars Exploration Program of the forthcoming decade. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.