Medium Term Plans

SCOS-2000^® (Release 4.0) was available in early 2005. It addressed for the first time multi-mission and multi-domain (a domain would normally correspond to a spacecraft in a constellation mission) issues. The main objectives were:

• To be able to share servers and clients across missions, thus minimizing the amount of hardware platforms to support mission families
• To be able to control constellations of satellites without having to deploy one full system per satellite

These objectives were fully consolidated early in year 2006 with Release 5.0. This release extended the multi-domain capabilities and enabled full automation of SCOS-2000^® interactions.

Mid-term objectives:

Multi-mission/Multi-domain capabilities: the current design of SCOS-2000^® is based on the concept of single-spacecraft systems running on dedicated platforms. The design will be adapted to the needs of missions involving the monitoring and control of satellite constellations as well as to the needs of 'mission families' sharing common control positions.

Automation: the current design of SCOS-2000^® is primarily driven by the needs of spacecraft operators interacting with the system via Man-Machine Interfaces. Current and future missions are expected to require an increasing level of ground operations automation; such to minimize the number of daily shifts required to monitor and control one (or a constellation of) spacecraft.

Increase in performance: future missions are likely to demand and increase in the filing, processing, retrieval and distribution of operational data.

Maintainability/Productization: the transformation of SCOS-2000^® from a piece of ESA's infrastructure into a fully usable product is a process that started to take place in year 2001. Such transformation involves the optimization and removal of dependencies between subsystems. In general, improvements to the maintainability of this continuously 'growing' and 'evolving' system both on the side of the software implementation as well as on the side of design documentation, are taking place in parallel with new developments.

Harmonization of Ground Operations Systems and Standardization: a major objective is the identification of a common set of low level services that can be re-used across the different systems as well as the harmonization of the technology and standards adopted for the external services. This will ensure that the implementation of the services offered by the different ESOC ground systems is harmonized and re-usable wherever possible.

Portability: the latest SCOS-2000^® release is compatible with both Linux and Solaris Operating Systems, thus enabling the code to be run on different hardware platforms. Further enhancements are planned to increase the independence from the underlying technology (e.g. programming language, middleware, COTS products) in order to improve the long-term portability.