Mission Commander
Onboard
management of the instrumentation crew during a mission is the responsibility of the ARIA
mission commander (MC). The MC operates a mission control console in the instrumentation
area where he monitors the status and operation of all ARIA subsystems and initiates any
needed commands to the equipment operators. The MC is the interface between the aircraft
and the ARIA Operations Control Center (AOCC) for coordination of mission-related
information and serves as the point of contact between the flight crew and the
instrumentation crew.Within the increasingly dynamic climate of space launch,
ARIA must be flexible. As a result, new ARIA Mission Planning Software (AMPS) has been
created to meet these needs and allow last minute changes to planned vehicle trajectories,
aircraft mission support points, etc. This new windows based software, designed by 1Lt
Casey Moore - ARIA Mission Commander, allows the MC to import any properly formatted
(EFG)
trajectory and transfer this information to the Antenna Control Assembly (ACA) via a
laptop personal computer. After the ACA receives the trajectory (essentially points in
space with respect to time for vehicle position), it will use the theoretical points along
with aircraft positioning to determine antenna pointing data. See AMPS snapshot below.
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