Human Spaceflight
RHEA has been providing engineering services to the ESA Human Spaceflight Department for several years. RHEA engineers have been working on space missions for the International Space Station (ISS) Columbus module, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), ISS Node 2 and Node 3, ISS Cupola, ESA Lunar Lander and on the ESA European Life and Physical Science (ELIPS) programme.
RHEA has been responsible for the MSM GS development and operations support for the Columbus-CC and the analysis of the Columbus-CC detailed design and interfaces. In the early days of the Columbus-CC definition, RHEA participated in the operations preparation phase for Columbus-CC and the generic operations preparation and execution. RHEA provided payload operations support, ground segment and training for the Col-CC console operators and developed the ground infrastructure of the User Support and Operations Centres (USOCs) from the lay-out of the control rooms to the set-up of the operations software. RHEA engineers were involved in the provision of mission operation support, such as the preparation, execution and post-flight evaluation of the flight operations for the Odissea Belgium Taxi Flight.
RHEA human spaceflight competencies are in the provision of payload integration and operations engineering, mission preparation and execution of ISS payloads and the provision of real-time support, including anomaly resolution for achieving mission success and ISS experiments definition.
Examples of the activities performed by RHEA include:
- ISS Payload Operations and Integration Engineering
- Columbus User Support and Operations Centres (USOCs) training and simulations
- Guidance Navigation Control (GNC) Engineering Support for future Lunar Lander missions
- ISS Mission Operations support and ISS Columbus increment activities
- Physical Science Research support for ISS experiments definition
- MOIS software which is used by CNES for the ATV preparation and validation of the manual and automatic procedures that control the spacecraft’s flight control, rendezvous, docking and re-entry manoeuvres
