The GSOC Flight Dynamics team supports the Space Operations department and external customers in preparation and operation of satellite missions. Among the main tasks are orbit and attitude determination, orbit prediction, orbit control, collision avoidance and re-entry. Furthermore, the ground segment is supported with the provision of flight dynamics products like predictions of the satellite position for tracking-antennas, orbit related products for the support of mission planning and satellite operations as well as for payload operations.
For the preparation of projects the requirements for the flight dynamics system are analyzed and an operational system is implemented and validated. A mission analysis is performed, which examines flight dynamics aspects of the mission. The Flight Dynamics team operates the installed system during the mission and supports the project with analyses as necessary.
For the execution of these tasks, the group has developed a series of software tools, which can support the mission analysis as well as the flight dynamics operations. These tools are constantly updated and extended for new mission types.
Below these tools are briefly described.