Publication date: 14 Jul 2005

Authors: Camino, O. et al.

Year: 2005

Smart-1 is the first of a series of ESA Small Missions for Advance Research and Technology where elements of the platform and the payload technology have been conceived as a demonstration for future cornerstone missions and an early opportunity for science. It was launched on 27th of September 2003 and spiraled out over a 14-month period until being captured by the Moon on 15/11/2004, thus successfully achieving the primary objective set to demonstrate Solar Electric Propulsion.

The paper will show the pros and contras in some of the choices made for Smart-1 together with the developments and the solutions implemented to mitigate the problems found during the mission:

• Impact of on-board problems on operations
• Ground Segment automation
• Keeping the mission control team reduced
• The increased importance of the Mission Planning System
• Fast distribution of spacecraft data through internet for anomaly identification and analysis
• Summary of lessons learnt

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