Emirates Mars Mission Flight Simulator: FlatSat Overview

The Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) was announced in July 2014, the mission is expected to launch July of 2020. Paving the road forward for the development of the science sector in the region is one of the main objectives of the mission. EMM is led by Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC), with international partners from the University of Colorado - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), Arizona State University (ASU), and the University of California at Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory (UCB). Due to extremely high cost, lead time, and sensitivity associated with flight hardware; engineering models are essential when it comes to building a spacecraft from scratch. FlatSat is a term used in the aerospace field that refers to a setup with a high-fidelity representation of the flight model in both the hardware and software functionality. FlatSat provides a venue for procedure development, verification and risk reduction testing. In addition, it is utilized as a verification test to determine any changes required prior to the development of flight models, especially with low technology readiness level (TRL) components. FlatSat is used to detect interface issues between components and help resolve them. In addition, FlatSat allows that interface control document to be robust and error-free by holding high similarity with the observatory. Developing an interplanetary mission in just six years is a challenge. FlatSat has been a great asset to this mission. Starting with the development of the Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) to the final mission scenario testing and fault protection. FlatSat has been developed through three phases, phase one consisted of the basic EGSE and avionics functionality, then the communication and attitude control functionality were added as the second phase. Lastly the third phase encoded the simulated functionality for the spacecraft with the addition of payload simulators. Those three phases are lined up with the spacecraft schedule to ensure vigorous tests are performed on the units before the development of the flight models. EMM has developed two FlatSat benches, each located in a different time zone, to be operated around the clock. The time difference has strategically been applied to execute long-duration testing on one of the FlatSat test benches while keeping the other bench useable for spacecraft support. This operation has reduced some of the overhead associated with the test schedule.