Reducing operations, data flow, and cost: The relationships on one program

The Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) had been routinely planning, operating, and downlinking 5 Gbytes of data per day for the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) spacecraft. MSX was performing 26 unique data collection events per week, with each event being planned in detail to determine what data to collect and when to do the data collection. Support of these 26 events required the use of onboard tape recorders. Managing of the tape recorders and scheduling of the playbacks was a routine part of the Planning Team's tasks. The data was downlinked at the APL ground station, preprocessed, and written onto magnetic media for dissemination to a data user community. At the close of calendar year 1997, sponsor financial cutbacks caused reductions in operations and data flow. Faced with a short response time due to program requirements, a plan was developed and implemented that successfully met the needs of the sponsor with respect to spacecraft safety and data flow while still remaining within budget. Operations were well into the second year of the spacecraft's life when the plan was implemented. The only area in which major savings could be realized was in reduction of staff, which translated directly into doing fewer unique events. Reduction of,of ground hardware or systems did not result in significant savings as these systems were operational items already in place whose only cost was routine maintenance. As a result of the reduction, 14 standard events per week are performed. Each day at the same time one standard event is performed followed by a second standard event. No spacecraft tape recorders are used, and the data is disseminated electronically rather than via magnetic media. Because the reduction effort could not impact or put at risk the spacecraft's health and safety, the reduction plan includes routine checkout of all unused spacecraft subsystems. A current status of the spacecraft is thus maintained, which enables the sponsor to use the entire spacecraft on short notice. As a final part of the reduction, a return to normal operations was addressed. Should finances change and the sponsor desire to return to normal operations, a timeline and plan were developed for restaffing End resuming normal operations. This exercise yields cost numbers for an episodic spacecraft in terms of dollars per event for unique events and per standard event. These cost numbers provide the sponsor with planning numbers that can be used for future spacecraft operations.