TIMED ground system and mission operations

The Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission operations concept was developed with the intent of minimizing life-cycle expenditures. The operations concept and mission operations system were designed to reduce personnel costs and take advantage of automation and existing standards. The mission's end-to-end data system design was based on the concept of decoupled operations between the spacecraft bus and the science instruments. The TIMED operations system includes the Mission Operations Center, Mission Data Center, and Satellite Communications Facility at APL; four Payload Operations Centers located at facilities across the country; and the distributed Science Data System.