AIAA 2014-1745

SpaceOps Conferences
5-9 May 2014, Pasadena, CA Proceedings of the 2014 SpaceOps Conference,
SpaceOps 2014 Conference
DRAFT ONLY Pasadena, CA, USA, May 5-9, 2014, Paper
AIAA 2014-1745.

Collision Avoidance Operations in a Multi-Mission

Environment

Manfred Bester,1 Bryce Roberts,2 Mark Lewis,3 Jeremy Thorsness,4 Gregory Picard,5 Sabine Frey,6
Daniel Cosgrove,7 Jeffrey Marchese,8 Aaron Burgart,9 and William Craig10
Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7450

With the increasing number of manmade object orbiting Earth, the probability for close
encounters or on-orbit collisions is of great concern to spacecraft operators. The presence of
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debris clouds from various disintegration events amplifies these concerns, especially in low-
Earth orbits. The University of California, Berkeley currently operates seven NASA
spacecraft in various orbit regimes around the Earth and the Moon, and actively
participates in collision avoidance operations. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory provide conjunction analyses. In two cases, collision avoidance
operations were executed to reduce the risks of on-orbit collisions. With one of the Earth
orbiting THEMIS spacecraft, a small thrust maneuver was executed to increase the miss
distance for a predicted close conjunction. For the NuSTAR observatory, an attitude
maneuver was executed to minimize the cross section with respect to a particular
conjunction geometry. Operations for these two events are presented as case studies. A
number of experiences and lessons learned are included.

Nomenclature
dLong = geographic longitude increment
ΔV = change in velocity
dZgeo = geostationary orbit crossing distance increment
i = inclination
Pc = probability of collision
R = geostationary radius
RE = Earth radius
σ = standard deviation
Zgeo = geostationary orbit crossing distance

I. Introduction

S PACECRAFT operators are concerned about close approaches between their spacecraft and other operational
spacecraft or orbital debris, and need to be prepared to execute thrust or attitude maneuvers aimed towards
reducing the risks of an on-orbit collision, if those capabilities exist. The space around Earth is rather crowded
already, but even in less congested environments, there is a non-zero probability for collisions. Although only few
spacecraft currently operate in lunar orbits, a close encounter with another object could have catastrophic
consequences.

1
Director of Operations, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, AIAA Senior Member.
2
Ground Systems Engineer, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, AIAA Member.
3
Mission Operations Manager, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley.
4
Lead Flight Controller, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley.
5
Lead Scheduler, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley.
6
Mission Design Lead, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley.
7
Navigation Lead, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley.
8
Flight Dynamics Analyst, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley.
9
Flight Dynamics Analyst, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley.
10
Project Manager, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley.
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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Copyright © 2014 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.
 The University of California, Berkeley (UCB) currently operates seven NASA spacecraft – five in Earth and
two in lunar orbits – from its multi-mission operations center at Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL).1 A summary of
salient mission characteristics is provided in Table 1.
The Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions During Substorms (THEMIS) mission, a NASA
Medium-class Explorer, is a five-spacecraft constellation launched in 2007 to study the physics of the aurora.2 Three
of the original THEMIS spacecraft, also referred to as probes, currently operate in highly elliptical, low-inclination
Earth orbits with perigees between 600 and 1,100 km, and apogees of 66,500-66,800 km. Primary concerns include
periodic crossings of the geostationary belt as well as encounters with low-Earth objects near perigee.
The remaining two THEMIS spacecraft departed Earth orbits in 2009 and arrived in lunar orbits in 2011,
forming a new mission called the Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence, and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s
Interaction with the Sun (ARTEMIS).3-5 The low-energy transfer with Earth and lunar gravity assists and with
extended operations in lunar libration point orbits culminated in the direct insertion into highly elliptical lunar orbits.
The THEMIS and ARTEMIS probes are spinning instrument platforms to measure fields and charged particles.
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The spin-plane wire booms that are part of the Electric Field Instrument (EFI) extend up to 50 m end-to-end. All five
spacecraft carry propulsion systems and can execute ΔV maneuvers to avoid close approaches.
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), a NASA Small Explorer operating in low-Earth orbit
(LEO), is a three-axis stabilized astrophysics observatory, consisting of a pair of hard X-ray telescopes with
focusing optics, mounted at the end of a 10-m long mast.6 NuSTAR does not carry a propulsion system, hence the
only practical way to reduce the risk of a collision is by performing an attitude maneuver to minimize the cross
section for a particular conjunction geometry. Such an attitude maneuver is designed to orient the long axis of the
observatory parallel or anti-parallel to the relative velocity vector between NuSTAR and the approaching object.

Table 1. Overview of Characteristics of NASA Missions Currently Operated at UCB.

THEMIS / ARTEMIS
• Constellation of 5 spin-stabilized probes (P1-P5), spin rates 14-20 rpm
• Electric & magnetic field and charged particle sensors, 5 instruments per probe
• Mission science: Magnetospheric Physics and Heliophysics
• Launch: February 17, 2007
• Two probes (ARTEMIS P1, P2) transferred to lunar orbits, beginning in 2009
• Lunar orbit insertion achieved in 2011
• Current Earth orbits (P3, P4, P5): 600-1,100 × 66,500-66,800 km, i = 8-13°
Image credits: NASA • Current lunar orbits (P1, P2): 50-1,200 × 15,900-17,500 km, i = 169° and 36°
• Hydrazine propulsion systems with 4 thrusters for orbit and attitude control
• Total mass per spacecraft: 127 kg (wet at launch), 78 kg (dry)
• Spacecraft dimensions, tip-to-tip: 50 × 40 m in spin plane, 7 m along spin axis
NuSTAR
• Three-axis stabilized platform
• Dual focusing hard X-ray telescopes, 10 m focal length
• Mission science: Astrophysics
• Launch: June 13, 2012
• Current Earth orbit: 613 × 630 km, i = 6° deg
• Reaction wheels (4), no propulsion system, total mass 324 kg
• Spacecraft dimensions: 11 m long axis, 4 m solar array, 1.2 m spacecraft body
RHESSI
• Sun-pointed, spinning platform, spin rate 12 rpm
• Imaging spectrometer for X-ray and gamma ray wavelengths
• Mission science: Heliophysics
• Launch: February 5, 2002
• Current Earth orbit: 514 × 535 km, i = 38° deg
• Magnetic torque bars (3), no propulsion system, total mass 300 kg
• Spacecraft dimensions: 5.5 × 5.5 m solar arrays, 2.5 m long imager tube

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 The Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI), another NASA Small Explorer, is a spinning,
Sun-pointed observatory studying solar flares at X-ray and gamma ray wavelengths.7 It also operates in LEO and
does not carry a propulsion system. The observatory’s cross section is not very strongly dependent on attitude. Due
to torque limitations of the attitude control system the spacecraft can also not be reoriented efficiently on relatively
short notice. RHESSI therefore does not have the ability to actively reduce the risk of a collision.
This paper describes the planning activities and procedures that UCB developed to respond to conjunction
warnings, as well as experiences and lessons learned with the process.

II. Operating in Crowded Space

A. General Concerns
Operators of spacecraft in the crowded LEO environment must expect to be faced with close encounters without
more than a week advance notice, sometimes even shorter. This situation was aggravated further as a result of
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several significant spacecraft break-up events. The most notable events creating large debris clouds were the
Fengyun-1C disintegration on January 11, 2007, and the on-orbit collision of Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 on
February 10, 2009.8,9
Due to differential precession, the debris clouds from these events have spread out around the Earth more or less
evenly since the break-ups occurred. Pieces associated with these debris clouds alone account for more than 4,200
objects currently tracked by the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). Corresponding orbital
elements are publicly available via the CelesTrak web site (www.celestrak.com).
NuSTAR and RHESSI are operating within the crowded LEO regime. The three Earth orbiting THEMIS probes
also pass through this regime near perigee of each orbit.

B. Special Concerns for THEMIS

Of special concern for THEMIS are seasonal crossings of the geostationary belt. The three Earth orbiting
THEMIS spacecraft, THEMIS P3, P4, and P5, also referred to as THEMIS D, E, and A, respectively, by their flight
model numbers, operate in low-inclination orbits with perigees below and apogees above the geostationary altitude,
as is illustrated in Figure 1. These crossings occur periodically when the distances of the ascending or descending
nodes of the THEMIS orbits line up with the geostationary orbit.10 Such a case is shown in Figure 2 for THEMIS P3
(THEMIS D). Due to the low inclination and the rate of precession of the argument of perigee, these conditions
typically last for 14-16 successive THEMIS orbits. Figure 3 indicates the seasonal evolution of these crossings for
the current THEMIS orbit geometry.

Figure 1. THEMIS P3-P5 (THEMIS D, E, A) spacecraft orbits. Current periods of these low-inclination
orbits are about 22.2 h long. The grid represents the equator of the J2000.0 coordinate system. Circles are
spaced by 2 RE. The geostationary orbit and its population can be recognized at a geocentric distance of
6.611 RE.

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Figure 2. Example of the THEMIS P3 (THEMIS D) spacecraft crossing the geostationary belt. This
alignment occurs when either the ascending or the descending node coincides with the distance R of the
geostationary orbit.

Figure 3. THEMIS evolution of the inclination (left) and the geocentric nodal distances (right). Different
colors represent the three spacecraft: P3 (D): dark blue, P4 (E): light blue, and P5 (A): purple. X-axis units are
days counted since January 1, 2014. The vertical lines mark one year. The evolution of the nodal distances is
dominated by the precession of the argument of perigee. Crossings of the geostationary orbit occur when either the
ascending nodes (darker symbols) or the descending nodes (lighter symbols) coincide with the distance of the
geostationary orbit at R = 42,164 km, as indicated by the horizontal line.

A numerical example of a sequence of geostationary orbit crossings for THEMIS P3 (D) in July and August
2014 that correspond to the graphics shown in Figure 2 is given in Table A-1 in the Appendix. In this particular
case, the spacecraft initially passes underneath the geostationary orbit at a distance Zgeo = -219 km, and
approximately two weeks later crosses over the top at Zgeo = +206 km. Within this time frame the geostationary belt
is crossed 14 times within ±200 km and with distance increments dZgeo of 25-31 km and longitude increments of
about 25.9° per orbit, progressing in eastern direction, given the present THEMIS orbit geometry.
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 III. Collision Avoidance Operations
NASA requires mandatory compliance with NPR 8715.6A, the NASA Procedural Requirements for Limiting
Orbital Debris.11 NPR 8715.6A is applicable to spacecraft operating in Earth and lunar orbits, and states that
conjunction assessment analyses shall be performed for all maneuverable Earth-orbiting spacecraft with a perigee
altitude below 2,000 km or within 200 km of geosynchronous Earth orbit. All five THEMIS and ARTEMIS
spacecraft, illustrated in their deployed configuration in Figure 4, are maneuverable. The Earth orbiting probes also
meet both orbit conditions for which conjunction assessment is required. NuSTAR has maneuverability in attitude
only. RHESSI has essentially no maneuverability, as far as mitigation of on-orbit collisions is concerned.
Planning and execution of collision avoidance operations for these seven NASA spacecraft involves a complex
interaction and coordination of a mission dependent subset of the following organizations: the Joint Space
Operations Center (JSpOC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), USSTRATCOM, the Robotic Conjunction
Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) Team and the Space Science Mission Operations (SSMO) Project Office at
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the MArs (and Moon) Deepspace Collision Avoidance Process
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(MADCAP) Team and the NuSTAR Project Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the University of
California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and UCB. General and mission
specific aspects of the processes involved are described in the following subsections.

A. Trajectory Determination
UCB is responsible for maintaining accurate state vectors for all
five THEMIS and ARTEMIS probes. The orbit determination (OD)
process utilizes the Goddard Trajectory Determination System
(GTDS).12 GTDS ingests two-way Doppler measurements from
multiple ground stations and calculates accurate state vectors with a
high-fidelity force model and a differential correction algorithm. For
the two ARTEMIS probes, NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN)
also provides range measurements that are included in the OD
process.13 OD arcs are typically seven days long, and the OD
process runs at least once per week. Ephemerides are in turn
generated by GTDS, and are used for all operational mission-
planning functions at UCB.4 These ephemerides also include finite
ΔV maneuver trajectory segments, and are made available to JSpOC
and JPL to aid their conjunction screening processes. In addition,
the UCB navigation team explicitly notifies both JSpOC and JPL
when ΔV maneuvers are planned and executed.
USSTRATCOM maintains a high-accuracy space object catalog
(HAC) of orbital element sets, derived from observations with radar
and optical sensors that are part of the Space Surveillance Network
(SSN).14 Orbital element sets, including those for NuSTAR and
RHESSI, are provided in two-line element (TLE) format. UCB
downloads these TLE sets from the Space-Track.org web site for
generation of all operational data products. The HAC also includes
high-accuracy orbital elements for THEMIS A, D, and E.

B. Conjunction Screening and Reporting

Figure 4: THEMIS spacecraft with eight
deployed science instrument booms (not
to scale). The spin-plane wire booms of the
Electric Field Instrument (EFI) extend ±25
m in X and ±20 m in Y direction. The
instrument suite also includes a Fluxgate
Magnetometer (FGM), mounted at the end
of a 2-m long boom, a Search Coil
Magnetometer (SCM) on a 1-m long boom,
an Electrostatic Analyzer (ESA), and a pair
of Solid State Telescope (SST) sensors.
JSpOC screens ephemerides of operational spacecraft against the
HAC, but also uses Owner/Operator (O/O) provided ephemerides,
when available.14,15 The screening process employs three different
safety volumes as a filter to trigger activities, such as monitoring or
tasking additional tracks to improve OD solutions. The coordinate
frame used to describe conjunction geometry is the radial (U), in-
track (V), and cross-track (W) system, centered on the primary
(user) object. The safety volume depends on the type of orbit and
maneuverability of the user asset. For LEO objects, such as
NuSTAR and RHESSI, the tasking/alert volume is a box of size
UVW = (±0.5, ±5.0, ±5.0) km.14

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 The CARA Team works side-by-side with JSpOC personnel at VAFB to screen close approach predictions for
all NASA robotic missions. Other CARA Team members at GSFC in turn perform additional analysis functions to
quantify the risks of a potential collision.
As part of this process, the CARA Team also generates automated conjunction assessment (CA) summary
reports that include the Time of Closest Approach (TCA), the conjunction geometry (i.e. the miss distance vector in
the UVW frame), a calculated probability of collision (Pc), plus trending data for each conjunction.14-16 These
reports are distributed to approved stakeholders, including UCB, several times per day. Conjunction warnings are
typically provided up to 7-10 days ahead of the predicted TCA. The CARA Team also assists projects with specific
analyses and recommendations for mitigating a selected number of higher-risk conjunctions.
In addition to the conjunction geometry, the CA process also takes into account the accuracy of the OD solutions
for both objects to determine Pc. A specific hard body radius (HBR) may be selected for each spacecraft, based on
its physical size (also see Table 1 and Figure 4). For the Earth orbiting spacecraft operated by UCB, the CARA
Team uses the following HBR values:
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THEMIS: 25 m in any attitude (worst case)

NuSTAR: 10 m in any attitude (worst case),
5 m in optimized conjunction attitude (worst case solar array)
RHESSI: 4 m in any attitude (worst case)
The HBR for the secondary object is added to obtain a combined HBR for the automated calculations of Pc. For
small pieces of debris, a HBR value of 1 m is typically selected.
For the two ARTEMIS spacecraft, UCB receives conjunction reports from the MADCAP Team at JPL on a daily
basis.17 These reports include approach information between the two ARTEMIS probes, as well as between the
ARTEMIS probes and other objects in lunar orbit. Since passive objects in lunar orbit are not tracked via radar, the
accuracy for those conjunctions is lower. UCB provides inputs to MADCAP by uploading accurate mission
ephemeris files for the two ARTEMIS spacecraft via the Deep Space Network (DSN) Service Preparation
Subsystem (SPS) Portal on a weekly basis.

C. Operational Response Levels

Operational responses to CARA (or MADCAP) conjunction warnings are categorized in three levels, based on
the predicted value of Pc:
Level 1: 0 < Pc < 10-6
-6
Level 2: 10 < Pc < 10-3
Level 3: 10-3 < Pc < 1
Any conjunction warning issued by the CARA Team with a Pc of less than 10-6 qualifies as a Level 1 event.
Level 1 events are reported in weekly operations meetings as routine events, but no further action is taken unless a
refined conjunction warning indicates a Pc above 10-6. However, opportunities for ground station or Space Network
(SN) passes around TCA are identified, but no additional passes are scheduled yet. Trending of the miss distance
vector components and of Pc is monitored.
Level 2 events trigger notification of all Project stakeholders. Additional communications passes around TCA are
scheduled, and communications passes prior to TCA are identified for special commanding, such as for uploading
sequence tables to execute a collision avoidance maneuver, if needed. Trending of the miss distance vector
components and of Pc is closely monitored.
Level 3 events require planning and execution of a THEMIS ΔV maneuver or a NuSTAR attitude maneuver to
reduce the probability of a collision. Additional tracking passes are scheduled for THEMIS prior to TCA to improve
the OD accuracy to support the CARA Team with refining the predicted Pc. Command passes are scheduled to allow
for uploading maneuver sequence tables. Maneuver plans are developed and discussed with all stakeholders,
including the Principal Investigator (PI), NASA Mission Management, Project Management, UCB’s Multi-mission
Operations Team (MMOT), and the CARA Team. PI and Project Management approval are required prior to
executing any maneuvers. Final decisions for executing a THEMIS ΔV maneuver are made on a case-by-case basis
in coordination with the CARA Team and the SSMO Project Office.

D. Level 3 Response Procedures

As a first step in response to a Level 3 warning, the Mission Operations Manager (MOM) pages the Project
Team and calls in flight controllers and navigation team members to support planning for a potential ΔV or attitude
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 maneuver to reduce the risk of a collision. Planning of collision avoidance operations is also coordinated with the
CARA Team. The Project Manager (PM) notifies NASA Center and Headquarters management, as appropriate.
At the discretion of the MOM, and depending on the timing between receiving a warning and TCA, the Mission
Operations Center (MOC) is staffed and a corresponding maneuver is planned. The navigation team at UCB also
developed procedures and scripts to execute THEMIS and ARTEMIS ΔV maneuvers and NuSTAR attitude
maneuvers in near real-time, if needed, to mitigate the risk of collisions with only short advance notice.
Suitable ground station or SN communications passes for primary and backup command opportunities are
scheduled. The maneuver typically takes place no less than one orbit prior to TCA to allow for multiple
communications opportunities, and is planned but not executed until the MOM receives final direction from the PI
or his/her designee with concurrence from the PM or his/her designee. Once commanding is completed and
spacecraft responses and maneuver execution are verified, the MMOT monitors spacecraft state of health (SOH), as
practical, until after the conjunction event and reports the spacecraft status to the Project Team.
The MOM is responsible for documenting all conjunction events in a master spreadsheet. For Level 3 events that
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result in an anomaly, the MOM leads a formal investigation and provides associated documentation. In such a case
the anomaly is closed out via an Anomaly Technical Report that contains a detailed account of the sequence of the
events related to the anomaly, a description of the associated symptoms, the probable underlying cause(s), the
resulting action(s) taken, and the names and locations of the associated data files and logs. All of this information is
preserved as part of the MOC reference library. Depending upon the level of severity, a mishap investigation may be
initiated.
Regardless of the response level, the MMOT uses any associated lessons learned during contingency operations
to create new or update existing procedures as well as mission and flight rules in consultation with cognizant
engineers and management. All significant anomalies and lessons learned are also entered into GSFC’s Spacecraft
Orbital Anomaly Reporting System (SOARS) and the NASA Lessons Learned Information System (LLIS)
databases.
The following two sections describe case studies, one each for THEMIS and NuSTAR, in response to a Level 3
conjunction warning.

IV. Case Study 1 – THEMIS Collision Avoidance

This section describes a case study of planning and executing a collision avoidance ΔV maneuver for one of the
THEMIS probes to reduce the risk of a collision with another object.

A. Collision Risk Assessment

On October 18, 2013 (DOY 291), UCB received a CA summary report that predicted a close encounter between
THEMIS P3 (D) near its perigee with an object (hereafter referred to as Object B) from the Fengyun-1C debris
cloud with a TCA on October 25 (DOY 298) at 07:49:11 UTC. The predicted miss distance was larger than 4,500 m
with a radial component below 500 m and a predicted Pc of nearly 10-4. This triggered a Level 2 response with seven
days ahead warning.
The MOM notified stakeholders and the MMOT started to look into scheduling a communications pass around
TCA. However, initial pass schedule analyses around TCA indicated that the spacecraft had no view of a supporting
ground station, and that no Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) passes were available in the SN schedule.
Following a number of electronic mail exchanges between stakeholders, the UCB Navigation Lead then
contacted the CARA Team to discuss providing an accurate O/O ephemeris to aid the CA process. This was the first
time since launch that a close encounter was predicted for one of the THEMIS probes, and the first time that UCB
had to coordinate planning and executing a ΔV maneuver with the CARA Team.
The next CARA update for this conjunction was provided on October 20, when the miss distance increased to
more than 5,500 m, but the Pc still held at Level 2.
On October 22 (DOY 295), or three days prior to TCA, CARA generated a new update that now placed the miss
distance within approximately four times the size of the THEMIS probe, and with a radial component less than its
size. The predicted Pc rose above 10-3. This triggered a Level 3 response. The MMOT interacted with the SSMO
Project Office and the CARA Team to assess the quality of the OD solutions that had significantly improved for
both THEMIS P3 (D) and Object B. The last maneuvers on THEMIS P3 (D), a small orbit change maneuver with a
ΔV of 8.8 cm/s and a small spin-rate control maneuver that imparted a ΔV of 1.3 cm/s, had both been completed on
October 10, 2013 (DOY 283). UCB provided the latest ephemeris for THEMIS P3 (D) to CARA, and also scheduled
additional tracks with two ground stations in the southern hemisphere. A TDRS pass around TCA was obtained by
raising the criticality level for supporting this event.

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 A telephone conference was held on October 22 (DOY 295), and the following timeline was agreed upon: Later
in the day, UCB would generate a new OD solution based on two-way Doppler tracks from four ground stations,
including views from both the northern and southern hemisphere, and send an updated O/O ephemeris to CARA.
UCB would also generate two suitable collision avoidance maneuver scenarios and send ephemerides for both,
including finite thrust arcs, to CARA. CARA would then to forward these to JSpOC for screening early in the
morning on October 23 (DOY 296). The maneuver would be waived off and alternate options would be considered
if the JSpOC screening results came back with higher risk scenarios. Otherwise, the maneuver would be executed.

B. Thrust Maneuver Planning Process

On October 23, 2013 (DOY 296), UCB refined the two maneuver scenarios with an execution near apogee, or
1.5 orbits prior to TCA. Since the orbit phasing between THEMIS P3, P4, and P5 was critical for science operations,
the maneuver goals were chosen to create a ΔV parallel (Option A) or anti-parallel (Option B) to the line of apsides
near apogee, using two tangential thrusters, T1 and T2, mounted in the spin plane of the spacecraft. This approach
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would not change the orbital period, but it would change the conjunction geometry at TCA. By contrast, firing the
two axial thrusters, A1 and A2, in the present spacecraft attitude would change the orbit period and was therefore an
undesirable option. It was determined that the Berkeley Ground Station (BGS), co-located with the MOC at
UCB/SSL, had a view to support maneuver operations later in the same day at 23:50 UTC, and also with a back-up
option on October 24 (DOY 297), one orbit later, or 0.5 orbits prior to TCA. Additional pre-maneuver and post-
maneuver communications opportunities were available at the White Sands, New Mexico (WS1) and Santiago,
Chile (AGO) ground stations.
UCB provided the maneuver scenarios for Options A and B to the CARA Team, and CARA in turn analyzed
both options and determined that the increase in radial miss distance would meet the recommended 6-σ criteria for
the uncertainty of the radial component of the miss distance vector. CARA also submitted the post-maneuver
ephemeris files for both options to JSpOC for additional screening to ensure that neither of these maneuver options
would create new close conjunctions. The initial conditions and the maneuver goals for the selected collision
avoidance maneuver Option A are summarized in Table 2. Note that the orbital period remained unchanged, so that
the THEMIS P3-P4-P5 constellation alignment was unaffected.

Table 2. THEMIS P3 (D) Collision Avoidance Maneuver Parameters.

Maneuver Parameter Initial Value Maneuver Goal

Geocentric Perigee Radius 7343.76 km 7343.39 km
Geocentric Apogee Radius 72917.71 km 72918.08 km
Orbital Period 22.2241 h 22.2241 h
RAAN 17.987° 17.990°
Argument of Perigee 133.828° 133.824°
Inclination 8.206° 8.206°
ΔV − 7.4 cm/s
Predicted Overall Miss Distance < 200 m > 5,000 m

C. Thrust Maneuver Execution Process

In preparation for the maneuver execution, the MMOT scheduled multiple communications passes. The intent
was to provide redundancy, in case a real-time contact dropped out, and also to provide options for recovery from
last-minute spacecraft anomalies, such as an on-board processor reset. The following event timeline was executed on
October 23/24/25 (DOY 296-298) as part of the collision avoidance maneuver operations. All times are given in
UTC:
2013/296 18:00:00 - 18:30:00 Maneuver sequence table prepared for THEMIS P3 (D)
2013/296 19:00:00 - 20:00:00 Real-time simulation on the THEMIS flight simulator completed,
Maneuver planning and simulation paperwork reviewed and signed by MMOT
personnel
2013/296 23:00:00 - 23:20:00 Communications pass with the WS1 ground station,
Sequence table uploaded,

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2013/296 23:35:00 - 00:54:15
2013/297 07:27:20 - 07:57:20
2013/297 20:00:00 - 20:30:00
2013/297 22:30:00 - 23:22:00
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Science instrument safing operations performed,
Go/no-go poll prior to enabling the propulsion bus for autonomous maneuver
execution
BGS communications pass,
Real-time spacecraft SOH monitoring,
Final go/no-go poll prior to the thrust maneuver,
Thrust maneuver execution (23:50:00 - 23:50:19), ΔV = 7.4 cm/s,
Expended fuel 3.2 g, using tangential thrusters T1 and T2 with 6 pulses at a 40°
thrust pulse width, nominal burn execution
BGS pass for SOH monitoring and post-maneuver science instrument operations,
First post-maneuver two-way Doppler track
AGO pass for SOH monitoring and two-way Doppler track
AGO pass for SOH monitoring and two-way Doppler track

2013/298 00:20:00 - 01:00:00 WS1 pass for engineering data recovery, including thrust history data needed for
post-maneuver analysis and calibration
2013/298 06:52:00 - 07:12:00 BGS pass for engineering and science data recovery and two-way Doppler track
2013/298 07:34:00 - 08:04:00 TDRS 6 pass to monitor the conjunction, TCA at 07:34:11, no issues were noted.
Post-maneuver OD solutions confirmed that the achieved miss distance was indeed larger than 5,000 m, as
predicted. The overall interaction with the CARA Team worked very well. The collision avoidance maneuver
planning and execution process was very successful and established valuable timeline examples and experiences to
handle future events.

V. Case Study 2 – NuSTAR Collision Avoidance

This section describes a case study of planning and executing a collision avoidance attitude maneuver for
NuSTAR to reduce the risk of a collision with another object.

A. Collision Risk Assessment

In case of NuSTAR, the CARA Team predicted a conjunction with another object (hereafter referred to as
Object B) on July 1, 2013 (DOY 182) with a lead-time of 6.5 days. The predicted TCA was on July 7 (DOY 188) at
11:50:50 UTC. The predicted miss distance was above 1,000 m, but the radial component was below 100 m. The
calculated Pc was above 10-4 which triggered a Level 2 response.
Over the course of the following days, the evolution of the conjunction geometry and the risk of a collision were
monitored. The calculated Pc held rather steady, but on July 3 (DOY 184) reached the threshold for triggering a
Level 3 event response. Multiple telephone conferences with stakeholder were scheduled, and the Project consulted
with the CARA Team. On July 4 (DOY 185), the conjunction
appeared to recede, dropping back to Level 2, but then on July
5 (DOY 186) it came back to Level 3. The Project therefore
decided to perform an attitude maneuver to mitigate the risk of
a collision. By July 6 (DOY 187), the Pc settled near the
boundary between Level 2 and Level 3 responses with an
overall miss distance below 300 m, placing Object B just
within a 3-σ combined uncertainty of NuSTAR.
For this particular conjunction, the CARA Team modeled
the Pc by using a default HBR of 20 m. However, with the 5 m
value that corresponds to the attitude with the lowest cross
Figure 5. NuSTAR body coordinate system. section, the resulting P would drop by an order of magnitude.
c
The +Z-axis is the boresight of the twin X-ray
telescopes. The +X-axis coincides with the long
B. Attitude Maneuver Planning Process
direction of the solar array, and +Y completes a
The NuSTAR observatory has two main attitude control
right-handed tripod. In stellar pointing mode, the
modes, stellar pointing and inertial pointing, that are
+Z-axis is aligned with the direction toward the
employed during normal science operations. In stellar pointing
observing target. The observatory then performs
mode, the optical axis of the observatory is aligned with the
a yaw rotation around +Z and rolls the solar
astronomical X-ray target coordinates in +Z-direction of the
array around +X so that it faces the Sun. body coordinate system, as shown in Figure 5. In this pointing
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 mode, the attitude control system then also performs an automated yaw rotation around +Z, and rolls the solar array
around +X so that it faces the Sun.
In inertial pointing mode the observatory points at a fixed, inertial position, much like in stellar pointing mode,
but the automated yaw and solar array rotations are disabled. A combination of these two attitude control modes is
used to place the observatory into an attitude that minimizes its cross section during a close conjunction. i.e. the long
mast is oriented parallel or anti-parallel and the solar array edge-on to the relative velocity vector.
In preparation for performing an attitude maneuver that places NuSTAR into the desired, low-cross-section
attitude, UCB generates the relative velocity vector between NuSTAR and Object B (based on TLE sets downloaded
from Space-Track.org) in Earth Centered Earth Fixed (ECEF) coordinates. This vector is in turn converted to Earth
Centered Inertial (ECI J2000.0) coordinates, as required for conversion to a target attitude quaternion. Slew times
are selected, based on knowledge of the observatory slew rates and the required slew arc lengths. The entire slew
sequence is designed to arrive at the low-cross-section attitude one minute prior to TCA, and to depart one minute
after TCA, so as to minimize the loss of science observations. It consists of four slew arc segments, as illustrated in
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Figure 6. Intermediate waypoints are needed to place the observatory into an attitude with a Sun Aspect Angle
(SAA) of 90° in which the solar array faces the Sun squarely. These slew arcs have the following characteristics:
1) Stellar pointing slew from the current observing target to the SAA = 90° attitude (arc 1–2).
2) Inertial pointing slew (pure Eigen axis slew around the +X axis) from the SAA = 90° attitude to the low-
cross-section attitude at TCA (arc 2–3).
3) Inertial pointing slew from the TCA attitude back to the SAA = 90° attitude (arc 3–2).
4) Stellar pointing slew from the SAA = 90° attitude back to the original observing target (arc 2–1).
The third and forth slew arc segments are mirrors of the second and first segments, respectively. The main
advantage of this scheme is that it utilizes existing flight software capabilities of the attitude control system, without
the need to disable fault detection and correction (FDC) systems. Ground software and procedures to plan and
implement these slew sequences were developed by the MMOT.

Figure 6. Illustration of a NuSTAR attitude maneuver sequence. The solid black curve in this Aitoff
projection indicates how the observatory is first slewed from the current science-observing attitude (1) to an
intermediate attitude (2). The latter is always designed to fall onto a circle at 90° from the Sun that includes the
north and south ecliptic poles (NEP, SEP). The exact location along this circle is calculated such that a second
Eigen axis slew (roll) about the observatory’s X-axis then places the +Z or –Z-axis into the conjunction attitude
(3), orienting the 10-m long mast parallel or anti-parallel to the relative velocity vector between the two objects.
The red, green, and blue traces correspond to the boresight pointing of the three camera head units (CHUs) of
the star tracker, indicating how Sun and Moon avoidance constraints are checked.
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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
 C. Attitude Maneuver Execution Process
While the MOC has procedures in place to generate attitude quaternions and to build sequence tables for upload
on short notice, it was decided that in this case the Science Operations Center (SOC) at Caltech should be kept in the
loop in terms of processing the attitude maneuver sequence. The quaternions were given to Caltech, inserted into
their planning system, and delivered back to UCB via a secure electronic interface. The advantage was that this way
the SOC could cleanly maintain the observatory pointing timeline record that is essential for science data analysis.
A sequence table for the collision avoidance slew sequence was built, tested on the flight simulator, and
uploaded to the observatory on July 5 (DOY 186). The sequence of events (SOE) on July 7 (DOY 188), executed by
the autonomous on-board sequence, is provided in Table 3.

Table 3. NuSTAR Collision Avoidance Attitude Maneuver Sequence of Events on July 7, 2013 (DOY 188).

UTC Delta Time Event / Activity

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11:00:07 TCA – 00:50:43 Begin of a stellar pointing slew from the current science target (Galactic
Center Magnetar) to the intermediate SAA = 90° attitude, with the solar
array facing the Sun. Slew arc length: 97.11°, slew duration: 1,826 s.
11:30:33 TCA – 00:20:17 Arrival at the intermediate attitude with the solar array facing the Sun at
90°, and edge on to the observatory’s Z-axis. In this case, the observatory
+Z axis happened to point near the south ecliptic pole at slew completion.
11:31:37 TCA – 00:19:13 Begin of an inertial pointing slew (with the solar array frozen in place) to
orient the Z-axis parallel to the relative velocity vector at TCA. Slew arc
length: 52.26°, slew duration: 1,093 s.
11:40:00 TCA – 00:10:50 Begin of the scheduled TDRS 6 pass to monitor the observatory throughout
the conjunction.
11:40:30 TCA – 00:10:20 Begin of the TDRS 6 real-time telemetry data flow to the MOC.
11:49:50 TCA – 00:01:00 Arrival at the collision avoidance attitude. In this attitude the surface
normal of the solar array pointed 52° away from the Sun.
11:50:50 TCA – 00:00:00 Conjunction center time.
11:51:50 TCA + 00:01:00 Begin of an inertial pointing slew from the collision avoidance attitude
back to the SAA = 90° attitude near the south ecliptic pole.
12:10:00 TCA + 00:19:10 End of the TDRS 6 pass.
12:10:02 TCA + 00:19:12 Arrival at the intermediate attitude near the south ecliptic pole, with the
solar array facing the Sun at 90°, and still edge-on to the observatory’s Z-
axis.
12:22:00 TCA + 00:31:10 Begin of a stellar pointing slew from near the south ecliptic pole to the
original science target (Galactic Center Magnetar), including observatory
yaw rotation, and solar array roll to keep the solar array facing the Sun.
13:00:00 TCA + 01:09:10 Arrival on the science target and egress from Earth occultation of the
target.

The NuSTAR collision avoidance attitude maneuver was successfully executed. Again, the overall interaction
with the CARA Team worked very well, and the planning and execution process was very successful and
established valuable timeline examples and experiences for future events.

VI. Experiences and Lessons Learned

This section describes a number of experiences and lessons learned that were gained during the complex
collision avoidance operations scenarios.

A. Experiences
During the first year of receiving regular CA summary reports from CARA, a total of 273 conjunctions across
the five Earth orbiting spacecraft were tracked. The distribution between different spacecraft and as a function of
response level is summarized in Table 4. A significant fraction, 104 events or 38.1%, were related to objects in the
Fengyun-1C, Iridium 33, and Cosmos 2251 debris clouds.
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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
 Table 4. Summary of Conjunction Warnings Received between May 25, 2013 and May 16, 2014.

Mission Level 1 Events Level 2 Events Level 3 Events Total Events

THEMIS (P3, P4, P5) 116 1 1 118
NuSTAR 90 13 1 104
RHESSI 47 4 0 51
Total Events 253 18 2 273

Two conjunctions, one each for THEMIS P3 (D) and NuSTAR, were categorized as Level 3 events and resulted
in planning and execution of evasive maneuvers to reduce the risk of a collision with another object. A number of
predicted conjunctions were initially categorized as Level 2 events, but dissipated to Level 1 prior to TCA. No
conjunction warnings were received to date for THEMIS crossings of the geostationary belt.
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B. THEMIS Operations
As discussed above, concerns for THEMIS conjunctions are not only close approaches with other objects near
perigee, but are also related to crossings through the geostationary belt. UCB is in the process of implementing new
software tools that will allow automated generation of geostationary belt crossing reports for all Earth orbiting
THEMIS probes. These reports will be forwarded to the CARA Team prior to and during crossing seasons.
The THEMIS thrust maneuver approach was designed to not change the orbital periods, so that the constellation
geometry remained undisturbed. Procedures and software tools were originally developed to respond to conjunctions
with geostationary or geosynchronous objects, but were found to be just as applicable to problems with encountering
LEO objects. Scripts in the Interactive Data Language (IDL) were written to facilitate planning of THEMIS thrust
maneuvers with conjunction warnings on short notice. Required input parameters are the maneuver execution time,
the TCA, and the desired change in absolute position at TCA.18 Note that by firing thrusters in cross-track direction,
the resulting position change at TCA will also have a significant cross-track component.
Planned process improvements at UCB also include automated, daily delivery to the CARA Team of O/O
ephemeris in Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) Orbit Ephemeris Message (OEM) format.19
The main advantage will be that those ephemeris files also include finite burn arcs and predictive post-maneuver
states, allowing the screening process to continue smoothly past ΔV maneuvers. While JSpOC is also directly
notified of upcoming ΔV maneuvers, their OD process is mainly based on radar tracking and needs to be restarted
with post-burn observations. It then takes at least several days to re-converge to an accurate OD solution suitable for
screening of close encounters.

C. ARTEMIS Operations
Spacecraft operators also have to worry about close encounters with natural debris. Such an event occurred on
October 14, 2010 on the ARTEMIS P1 (B) spacecraft during the lunar libration point (EM L2) orbit phase.5,20 As
determined by post-event analysis, an EFI sensor sphere with a mass of 92 g at the end of the 25-m long -X wire
boom was likely severed off by one or more micrometeorid impacts, associated with the Orionids meteor shower.
Through conservation of linear momentum the event imparted an approximate ΔV of 5.7 cm/s on the spacecraft
body, similar in magnitude to a typical stationkeeping maneuver in the sensitive EM L2 orbit.
The anomaly was initially discovered as a residual range rate bias on subsequent two-way Doppler tracks. The
resulting mass imbalance created asymmetrical thrust arms between the two tangential thrusters, T1 and T2, leading
to a torque that caused significant spin rate changes during the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) burn sequence. This
unexpected problem needed to be taken into account in the planning and segmentation of the LOI burn arcs, as it
affected the thrust pulse timing.4

D. NuSTAR Operations
The NuSTAR attitude maneuver approach is elegant and simple, and was relatively easy to implement. The
timeline presented in the second case study was followed flawlessly, and serves as a model for working around
future conjunctions.

E. Resource Planning
Receiving CARA CA summary reports and processing conjunction warnings for multiple missions up to four
times per day became part of routine operations, but was not initially included in the mission operations budgets.
Personnel resources are not insignificant to review CARA and MADCAP reports, to keep track of each predicted
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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
 conjunction in a multi-mission spreadsheet, to interact with scheduling and sequencing teams for planning additional
communications coverage with Level 2 conjunctions, and to provide periodic status updates to Projects. In special
cases meetings are scheduled to assess risks and discuss mitigation options. Additional resources need to be included
in future budgets to better cover these activities.

F. Contingency Planning
To further mitigate the risk of collisions, spacecraft operators should be prepared to contact operators of the
other object if it turns out to be an operational satellite, so that collision avoidance operations may be coordinated.
The latest version of the Space-Track.org web site provides contact information to support such interactions.

VII. Conclusion
Operational procedures for collision avoidance maneuvers were successfully executed on two occasions to
reduce the risk of an on-orbit collision between spacecraft operated by UCB and other orbiting objects. Complex
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processes to work effectively across multiple organizations were developed, and were applied in multiple operations
scenarios. It was demonstrated that collision avoidance operations could be integrated into day-to-day activities
without causing much disruption to science operations. Software tools to support collision avoidance operations
were adequate, but will be refined further. A number of valuable experiences were gained and lessons were learned
from handling a seemingly continuous stream of conjunction warnings towards protecting NASA assets and
reducing the risks of creating additional orbital debris fragments.

Appendix

Table A-1. Example of THEMIS Geostationary Orbit Crossings.

Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the CARA Team at NASA/GSFC and a.i. solutions, Inc., in particular Lauri K.
Newman, Ryan Frigm, Paul Frakes, Russel DeHart, Daniel Pachura, and Timothy Richardson for their dedicated
support with collision analyses and risk assessment, and for commenting on the manuscript. We also wish to thank
Richard Burns, Richard Harman, and Gregory Marr at the SSMO Project Office at NASA/GSFC for their support.
The authors also appreciate collaboration with NuSTAR team members at Caltech (Karl Forster, Hiromasa
Miyasaka, and colleagues), at JPL (Suzanne Dodd, Nazilla Rouse), and at Orbital ATK (David Oberg, Grace Baird,
John Fulmer, and their colleagues). We also appreciate the support by our UCB operations team members John
McDonald, Martha Eckert, Deron Pease, Renee Dumlao, and Warren Rexroad. Dr. Brandon Owens (formerly at

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 UCB, now at NASA Ames Research Center) was instrumental in developing the THEMIS collision avoidance
maneuver procedure.
THEMIS and ARTEMIS are operated by the University of California, Berkeley under NASA contract NAS5-
02099. NuSTAR work at the University of California, Berkeley is conducted under Caltech subcontract CIT-44a-
1085101 to NASA contract NNG08FD60C. The RHESSI mission is operated by the University of California,
Berkeley under NASA contract NAS5-98033.

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