Citizen Explorer-the application of an innovative mission operations system

The Colorado Space Grant Consortium (CSGC) has identified the need for a mission operations concept that supports both reusability and the integration of advanced technologies. The current application of this concept, CSGC's Citizen Explorer-I (CX-I) satellite project, supports the "faster, better, cheaper" ideology embraced by today's technological community. The key features of this system are robustness, distributed automation and sophisticated assessment capabilities. This paper will discuss the mission operations system's origin, its application to the CX-I project and its intended support of future space missions.