Spacecraft Operations

The book describes the basic concepts of spaceflight operations, for both, human and unmanned missions. The basic subsystems of a space vehicle are explained in dedicated chapters, the relationship of spacecraft design and the very unique space environment are laid out. Flight dynamics are taught as well as ground segment requirements. Mission operations are divided into preparation including management aspects, execution and planning. Deep space missions and space robotic operations are included as special cases. The book is based on a course held at the German Space Operation Center (GSOC).

Michael Schmidhuber works in the Department for Mission Operations at the German Space Operations Center (GSOC). There he is responsible for satellite operations training. He graduated as an aerospace engineer at the Technical University of Munich in 1994. After working in several positions and affiliations within GSOC, he became a DLR staff member in 2006. The training activities comprise not only staff training but also courses for an external audience in the annual Spacecraft Operations Course at GSOC. Also he is involved in the organization of the bi-annual international SpaceOps Conference.

Thomas Uhlig is Columbus Flight Director at the Columbus Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen and is leading the training for the European ISS flight controllers. He received his physics diploma and his Ph.D. from the University of Regensburg/Germany, where he worked on electromagnetic imaging of nanostructures. After working as scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago he changed into the spaceflight business, where he worked as Payload expert on the Space Shuttle mission STS-122, before he changed in his present position. He was awarded with the Helmholtz price 2005 of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, and is member of the International Astronautical Federation Space Operations Committee. He is author of various scientific articles.

Florian Sellmaier is the head of business development at the German Space Operations Center (GSOC). He received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics/Munich in 1996 and also spent some time at CALTECH in Pasadena/USA. After working in the radar and navigations area and as team lead of the Siemens Competence Center for e-Business Applications he joined DLR in 2006. As a project manager he conducted the acquisition and predevelopment of several upcoming mission like OLEV, DEOS and EDRS. He is author of numerous scientific publications in the Astrophysics as well as in the Space Operations area.