The IXV Ground Segment design, implementation and operations

• Published in: Acta astronautica Vol. 124; pp. 102 - 117
• Main Authors: Martucci di Scarfizzi, Giovanni, Bellomo, Alessandro, Musso, Ivano, Bussi, Diego, Rabaioli, Massimo, Santoro, Gianfranco, Billig, Gerhard, Gallego Sanz, José María
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2016
• Subjects: Design engineering; European Space Agency; Ground Segment; Ground stations; Grounds; IXV; Missions; Operations; Re-entry vehicle; Receiving; Segments; Vehicles; Re-entry vehicle; Operations; IXV; Ground Segment
• ISSN: 0094-5765; 1879-2030
• DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2015.09.013

The Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) is an ESA re-entry demonstrator that performed, on the 11th February of 2015, a successful re-entry demonstration mission. The project objectives were the design, development, manufacturing and on ground and in flight verification of an autonomous European lifting and aerodynamically controlled re-entry system. For the IXV mission a dedicated Ground Segment was provided. The main subsystems of the IXV Ground Segment were: IXV Mission Control Center (MCC), from where monitoring of the vehicle was performed, as well as support during pre-launch and recovery phases; IXV Ground Stations, used to cover IXV mission by receiving spacecraft telemetry and forwarding it toward the MCC; the IXV Communication Network, deployed to support the operations of the IXV mission by interconnecting all remote sites with MCC, supporting data, voice and video exchange. This paper describes the concept, architecture, development, implementation and operations of the ESA Intermediate Experimental Vehicle (IXV) Ground Segment and outlines the main operations and lessons learned during the preparation and successful execution of the IXV Mission. •We developed a dedicated Ground Segment for the ESA IXV re-entry mission.•We deployed ESA EGOS MICONYS framework over a virtual environment.•We developed a Communication Network and Ground Station for telemetry reception.•We defined operations and performed training and simulation activities.•We operated the IXV Ground Segment supporting IXV mission and recovery activities.