James Pawloski, NASA – GSFC, Jorge Aviles, GPM Flight Operations Team / HTSI, Ralph Myers, GPM Flight Operations Team / HTSI, Joshua Parris, ISS TOPO/JSC, Bryan Corley, ISS TOPO/JSC, Garrett Hehn, ISS TOPO/JSC, Joseph Pascucci, ISS TOPO/JSC (SGT)
Keywords: GPM, Precipitation Radar, CubeSat Deployment, ISS, TOPO, Collision Avoidance
Abstract:
The Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) is a joint U.S. and Japan mission to observe global precipitation, extending the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), which was launched by H-IIA from Tanegashima in Japan on February 28TH, 2014 directly into its 407km operational orbit. The International Space Station (ISS) is an international human research facility operated jointly by Russia and the USA from NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston Texas. Mission priorities lowered the operating altitude of ISS from 415km to 400km in early 2015, effectively placing both vehicles into the same orbital regime. The ISS has begun a program of deployments of cost effective CubeSats from the ISS that allow testing and validation of new technologies. With a major new asset flying at the same effective altitude as the ISS, CubeSat deployments became a serious threat to GPM and therefore a significant indirect threat to the ISS. This paper describes the specific problem of collision threat to GPM and risk to ISS CubeSat deployment and the process that was implemented to keep both missions safe from collision and maximize their project goals.
Date of Conference: September 20-23, 2016
Track: Poster