A monitoring and control tool for pre-optimization of data signal delay in telepresence satellite missions

Any space mission requiring telepresence, such as robotic applications in space for on-orbit servicing or the small-satellite mission BayernSat under the patronage of the Institute of Astronautics at the Technische Universität München has two crucially important requirements: long acquisition times for continuous telepresence operation phases, and a small delay time of a signal from ground to space and back to ground for real-time interaction. This paper will show how the combination of the software tools MDVE (Model-based Development and Verification Environment) and Framtec (Framework for advanced Monitoring, Telemetry and Control) as used in the BayernSat project will support meeting these two requirements. The software tool MDVE is an environment for developing, modeling, simulating and verifying satellite systems, which allows for a fully simulated satellite and a step by step hardware in the loop implementation of the satellite. The Monitoring & Control tool Framtec will be configured during the development process and will be used in its final configuration for BayernSat TMTC. The combination of these software tools allows a pre-optimizatioit of the data signal delay time in the early development phase. Therefore, it is possible to get a first estimation and verification of the implemented data structure on ground and in space prior to the mission operation phase. In this paper we first give an overview of the main requirements of telepresence missions followed by a short description of the used software tools MDVE and Framtec and their combined usage. Based on this the approach of pre-optimizing a data signal delay between the ground segment and the space segment is laid out. Finally, the interdependence between the satellite life cycle process and the introduced approach is discussed.