Knowledge management for the Rosetta Mission operations

The International Rosetta Mission is a cornerstone mission of the scientific program of the European Space Agency (ESA). The Rosetta probe will be launched in January 2003 for a long interplanetary journey, which will take it to rendezvous with the nucleus of comet P-Wirtanen in 2011. Rosetta will then orbit around the comet for two years and release a lander to the surface of the nucleus. For such a long duration mission finding solutions to the problem of knowledge and skills preservation is a key to mission success. This in particular considering that the main scientific phase takes place at the end of a long cruise, about 9 years after launch. The main directions established at the beginning of the mission preparation phase have been in the areas of documentation and information management, cross-training of mission controllers, use of spacecraft engineering model for post-launch training and maximization of post-launch development activities in the ground segment and partially in the on-board software. The approach to knowledge management and skills preservation taken for Rosetta is presented. The implementation status of the planned measures is briefly described, together with the plans for the future pre and post-launch activities in this area.