Design and implementation of the NEAR command load generation process

The goal of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft was a first of a kind orbital mission about a small body, the asteroid Eros. After launch NEAR entered a cruise phase of low activity punctuated by several key mission events. The cruise phase began without the benefit of an automated planning and scheduling system to create command loads. Command sequences were manually generated and tested. This was sufficient for the low activity periods yet extremely labor intensive for key mission events. The mission operations and software development teams developed an automated system and operating processes to support the desired science and spacecraft activities for orbital operations around Eros. The system supports both long term planning a few weeks out, and quick turnaround re-scheduling. The system contains Government-Off-The-Shelf software and integrates with the existing Commercial-Off-The-Shelf ground control center.