Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468

www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro

SMART-1: Development and lessons learnt

Peter Rathsmana,∗ , Joakim Kugelberga , Per Bodina , Giuseppe D. Raccab ,
Bernard Foingb , Luca Stagnarob
a Swedish Space Corporation, Stockholm, Sweden
b ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

Available online 5 May 2005

Abstract
SMART-1 is the first of the small missions for advanced research and technology as part of ESA’s science programme
“Cosmic vision”. It was successfully launched on September 27, 2003 and is presently traveling towards its destination, the
Moon. The main objective of the mission, to demonstrate solar electric primary propulsion for future Cornerstones (such as
Bepi-Colombo), has already been achieved. At the time of writing the electric propulsion system has been working already
for more than 3400 h and has provided a Delta-V to the spacecraft of more than 2500 m/s. The other technology objectives are
also being fulfilled by the verification of the proper functioning of such on-board experiments like the X-Ka band transponder,
the X-ray spectrometer, the near IR spectrometer, the laser link, etc. The scientific objectives are related to lunar science and
will be fulfilled once the spacecraft enters its operational lunar orbit, currently expected for January 2005. SMART-1 lunar
science investigations will include studies of the chemical composition of the Moon, of geophysical processes, environment
and high-resolution studies in preparation for future steps of lunar exploration.
SMART-1 has been an innovative mission in many aspects and we are now drawing some preliminary conclusions about
the lessons to be learnt. The paper describes the spacecraft and the technology elements with particular emphasis to the
technology nature of the mission. The on-board avionics employs many novel designs for spacecraft, including a serial
CAN bus for data communication, autonomous star trackers and extensive use of auto-code generation for implementing the
attitude control system and the failure, detection, isolation and recovery (FDIR). Finally, the orbital operation phase currently
ongoing, including the routine electric propulsion operations and the instrument commissioning, is providing a wealth of
data and lesson-learnt useful for future autonomous planetary missions.
© 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction

∗ Corresponding author.
SMART-1 is the first European lunar mission. The
E-mail addresses: Peter.Rathsman@ssc.se (P. Rathsman), spacecraft was successfully launched on September
Joakim.Kugelberg@ssc.se (J. Kugelberg), Per.Bodin@ssc.se
(P. Bodin), Giuseppe.Racca@esa.int (G.D. Racca),
27, 2003 from Kourou as an auxiliary payload on an
Bernard.Foing@esa.int (B. Foing), Luca.Stagnaro@esa.int Ariane V launcher. The Swedish Space Corporation
(L. Stagnaro). (SSC) has been the prime contractor for the SMART-1

0094-5765/$ - see front matter © 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2005.03.041
456 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468
Fig. 1. SMART-1 trajectory to the Moon.
spacecraft and has also developed several of the sub-
systems. The objective of the ESA-initiated SMART
programme, is to test critical technologies required
for future Cornerstone missions. The primary mis-
sion objective of SMART-1 is to demonstrate the use
of solar-electric propulsion (EP) in a relevant deep-
space trajectory. The relevant Cornerstone mission is
the Mercury orbiter Bepi-Colombo. The trajectory for
SMART-1 is a low-thrust transfer from geostationary
transfer orbit (GTO) into lunar orbit, using a series of
lunar gravity assists.
During the transfer, the influence of EP with re-
spect to the spacecraft subsystems and payload has
been characterized. The spacecraft also carries sev-
eral scientific instruments mainly for use in lunar orbit
[1,2].
The first phase of the mission involved continu-
ous EP thrusting and was completed by the beginning
of February 2004 when the spacecraft had reached
above the most dangerous parts of the radiation belts.
This allowed for a more efficient use of the EP with
thrusting mainly near the perigee. The initial perigee
altitude of 650 km had by mid-January 2004 been
raised to more than 14,000 km. As of end of August
2004, the perigee/apogee has been raised to 33,000
and 248,000 km, respectively. All payloads have been
successfully commissioned and all on-board systems
are performing nominally. Lunar capture is expected
Fig. 2. SMART-1 flight configuration.
in mid-November 2004. The complete trajectory (ac-
tual until mid-September 2004, and predicted for later
dates) is shown in Fig. 1.
2. Spacecraft overview
SMART-1 is a three-axis controlled spacecraft with
a launch mass of 367 kg (Fig. 2). Of this, 82.5 kg
is xenon gas which is used as propellant for the EP
system, and 8 kg is hydrazine used for momentum
management. The attitude control system is primar-
ily based on autonomous star trackers and reaction
wheels. The data handling system is built around a sin-
gle central processor and a serial CAN bus (Controller
Area Network) that allows communication with all on-
board equipment. The 10 m2 solar array uses triple-
junction GaAs cells and produces 1850 W of power,
1300 of which is used by the EP system. All platform
functions are redundant and provide single failure tol-
erance. The main purpose of the mission is to show
that EP, in this case a stationary plasma thruster, is
suitable for interplanetary missions. To this aim, the
requirement on on-board autonomy is also stringent;
the nominal time between ground contact is four days
and the minimum autonomy requirement is 10 days.
Even though the mass allocated for additional payload
is only 19 kg, an advanced scientific payload com-
prised of seven different instruments has been accom-
modated on SMART-1.
 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468 457

3. SMART-1 platform description

The spacecraft is composed of 11 subsystems:

• Structure
• Mechanisms
• Avionics
• On-board software
• Attitude and orbit control
• Hydrazine
• Telemetry tracking and command
• Power
• Thermal
• Electrical propulsion
• Scientific payload

The EP and the scientific payload instruments were Fig. 4. EP thruster orientation mechanism.
provided as customer-furnished items by ESA. The
interfaces and the overall system performance was the
responsibility of the prime contractor (SSC). 3.2. Mechanisms

Since the EP thruster operates continuously for long

3.1. Spacecraft main structure
The basic structure consists of a cylindrical cone,
four Al honeycomb side-wall panels and two Al hon-
eycomb horizontal decks. The 49-litre xenon tank, lo-
cated inside the central cone structure, stores 82.5 kg
of supercritical xenon at a pressure of 150 bars
(Fig. 3).
periods of time, there can be a considerable buildup
of angular momentum if the thruster is not aligned
through the spacecraft’s center of mass. The result
would be an unacceptably large hydrazine consump-
tion for momentum management. This is prevented by
the use of a thruster orientation mechanism (TOM)
with which the thruster is tilted on a two-axis gim-
bal (Fig. 4). The TOM is autonomously controlled to
limit the momentum buildup of the spacecraft. During
the first phase of the mission, no hydrazine-based mo-
mentum unloading has been necessary while the EP
has been thrusting. For flight results, see [3].
The rotation of each solar array is achieved inde-
pendently with two BAPTA actuators (Bearing And
Power Transfer Assembly).

3.3. Avionics

Since autonomy was a design driver for SMART-

Fig. 3. Spacecraft structure with EP components highlighted.
1, a completely new avionics design was developed
(Fig. 5). The design employs a strictly hierarchical
control scheme which has enabled the incorpora-
tion of a robust implementation of failure detection,
isolation and recovery (FDIR). The on-board
software (OBSW) runs on the Spacecraft Controller,
which is based on the single-chip ERC32 processor.
458 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468
Fig. 5. Schematic representation of SMART-1 Avionics.
Communication between all units is through a serial
CAN bus. All sensors and actuators are interfaced by
remote terminal units, which perform A/D conversions
and adapt the data formats to/from the CAN protocol.
Basically all FDIR decisions are taken by the OBSW.
To protect the system against a failed controller or
OBSW, the health of the OBSW and on-board space-
craft controller is continuously monitored by a “plat-
form supervisor” function within the power control
and distribution unit (PCDU). If a periodical “health
message” from the OBSW is absent from the CAN bus
for more than 60 s, the PCDU powers down the active
spacecraft controller and powers up the redundant one.
A feature with operational consequences is the im-
plementation of a non-volatile configuration register
kept in the power subsystem which is not erased other
than in the event of a full S/C power cycling. The reg-
ister contains the necessary information on the health
status of the on-board units and is used by the FDIR
software at controller power up.
3.4. On-board software
The software architecture is shown below. For the
purpose of this paper, the most interesting modules are
the ones handling the on-board autonomy:
• System manager
• Failure detection, isolation and recovery (FDIR)
core
• EP manager
• Power core
• Thermal core
• Data handling layer
The system manager implements error protections re-
lated to the controller and the CAN bus communi-
cation, and also controls the initial start-up sequence
including the autonomous deployment of the solar
arrays.
The FDIR module governs, with the help of the
other cores and the configuration register, the switch-
ing of on-board units. The general philosophy of the
FDIR is that if a single failure is detected and can be
isolated, the FDIR reacts by switching to the redun-
dant unit and marks the failed unit as unhealthy in
the configuration register. This is, in most cases, done
without affecting the S/C mode, thereby allowing con-
tinued EP operation. In the event of critical failures,
e.g. a double failure of AOC actuators or sensors which
 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468 459

invalid parent implies invalid child The data handling module implements a large subset
of the packet utilisation services (PUS):
ST
STSSBRTU SS • Telecommand verification
BAPTA
• Configuration of housekeeping telemetry reports
GP
System GRWRTU • Event reporting
CAN bus RW
TMTC
• Memory management
HTRTU HILV
PCDU • On-board scheduling (time tag queue)
EPMEL
EP
• On-board monitoring
CON
board TCRTU-A
• Large data transfer
TCRTU-B • Storage and retrieval management
AMIE • Connection test
D-CIXS

Payload EPDP The AOC, FDIR, thermal and power application soft-
CAN bus KATE ware has been developed in-house by the Swedish
SIR Space Corporation in a MATLAB/SIMULINK envi-
SPEDE ronment from which the code has been auto-generated.
unresolved child failure becomes parent failure Using MATLAB for flight-code development has
child power on implies parent power on proven to be a very efficient and reliable development
approach (Fig. 7).
Fig. 6. FDIR hierarchy with action directions.
3.5. Attitude and orbit control

The SMART-1 attitude control system uses an au-

would affect a safe mode operation, then the FDIR
orders a switch to the redundant controller which at
start-up also powers up all the redundant units. Switch-
ing between nominal and redundant is governed by a
principle of ‘potential’ as a function of CON. On the
redundant CON, all units will be B-units (redundant)
unless forced by ground to be A. Units return to B
upon removal of enforcement. Likewise, on the nom-
inal CON, all units will be A-units (nominal) unless
unhealthy or forced by ground command to B. Units
return to A upon removal of enforcement or unhealthy
status.
The autonomy behaves according to the parent-
child hierarchy depicted in Fig. 6. Actions propagate
between the generations in the directions of the
arrows.
The EP manager reacts to errors from the EP
by powering down the thruster in a controlled
way.
A number of power modes are implemented ensur-
ing that the consumption can be supported by the on-
board resources. This is handled by the power and
thermal cores.
tonomous star tracker (ST) with two camera heads as
the primary sensors and reaction wheels as primary
actuators. The system also contains rate gyros which
are used in lower ACS modes, and for sustaining three-
axis operation in the case of temporary loss of data
from both ST camera heads. The spacecraft also has a
hydrazine system for the purpose of momentum man-
agement and detumbling. As reported in [3], the EP
mechanism (TOM) also functions very effectively as
a momentum management actuator during EP opera-
tion, thereby significantly reducing the hydrazine con-
sumption.
The AOC system governs the spacecraft modes:
• Detumble
• Safe
• Science
• Electric propulsion
Fig. 8 below shows the four top level AOC modes.
The transitions are labelled with the possibility of au-
tonomous or commanded transition.
The EP control mode and science mode are simi-
lar three-axis controlled modes, with the EP control
460 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468

System & Mission Management Layer

FDIR System Management

Application Layer

AOC Power Thermal EP RF P/L

PUS Data Handling (DHS) Layer Basic

Services Services

Board support package RTOS Layer

Bootstrap Bootloader Vx Works

Fig. 7. SMART-1 OBSW architecture.

Fig. 8. SMART-1 AOC Mode architecture.

 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468
Fig. 9. SMART-1 Solar array output power (W) during first 11
months of mission.
mode also incorporating the control of the EP gimbal
mechanism.
3.6. Power generation and storage
The power on board SMART-1 is provided by six
solar panels equipped with a total of 8 m2 of triple
junction GaAs solar cells. The output power is 1850 W
beginning-of-life, equinox conditions. The predicted
end-of-life power is 1615 W (equinox conditions). The
actual solar array output power as a function of mission
duration is shown in Fig. 9. The initial degradation
up till January 2004 was due to the passage through
the radiation belts in combination with the very severe
solar storms of October 2003. After January 2004, the
output power follows the expected seasonal variation.
The degradation so far is close to the predicted values.
SMART-1 has a fully regulated 50 V power bus. The
need for a regulated power bus is driven by the EP
thruster and its need for a well defined and regulated
voltage. A single voltage power bus system was chosen
since the added complexity of having a two-bus system
with its inherent demand for either redundant DC/DC
converters or split solar array sections proved to be
unnecessary complex and costly.
The control and regulation system employs a hot
redundant scheme, i.e. three units working in parallel
with majority voting logic. Power is supplied to all
loads via solid state power switches which include
over-current and under-voltage trip-off protection. In
461
addition, there are several FDIR functions within the
OBSW that monitor that the power consumed by the
EP is consistent with other platform needs (battery
charging etc.).
During eclipse or when the solar array cannot meet
the load demand, power is supplied through a mod-
ular Li-ion battery system. Each of five Li-ion cells
provides energy to the bus through its own dedicated
battery management electronics.
3.7. Thermal control
SMART-1 is, in many aspects, similar to geostation-
ary telecommunication spacecraft and therefore uses
the same thermal control techniques: The ‘north’ and
‘south’ panels (+/−Y for SMART-1) are used as ra-
diators and equipped with heat pipes to spread out the
heat from high-dissipation units. Multi-layer insula-
tion blankets are used on other external surfaces while
high emissivity optical properties are used on the in-
ternal structure and units. All heaters are controlled
by software thermostat control. Critical equipment,
such as hydrazine lines, are equipped with hardware-
thermostats in series with the heaters in order to protect
against overheating in the case of a heater line failed
ON. The electric thruster, which operates at high tem-
perature, is thermally decoupled from the spacecraft
and has a dedicated thermal radiator.
The mission trajectory has been designed to limit the
eclipse lengths to a maximum of 2 h. A boost-heating
thermal mode is used prior to eclipse entry in order to
minimize the (battery-provided) heater energy during
the eclipse. The maximum battery depth-of-discharge
so far has been 50%, with no observable degradation
of battery capacity so far in the mission.
3.8. Solar electric primary propulsion
The main technological purpose of the mission
is the flight test of the EP as main propulsion sys-
tem. The components of the EP system are shown in
Fig. 10 below.
The EP thruster uses xenon as propellant. The xenon
is stored in the tank at high pressure (max 150 bars).
The pressure is reduced in the bang-bang pressure reg-
ulation unit to a working pressure of 2 bars and flow
modulation is done by the xenon flow controller. The
power processing unit distributes the electrical power
462 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468

BEAM
The Electric
CAT A propulsion subsystem
Thruster
(Anode) CAT B consists of the
following units:

• Xenon tank
• Bang-bang
FU XFC Pressure
Regulation Unit

• Xenon Flow
Controller
EPIRTU BPRU
• Power
Processing Unit
PPU
• Electrical Filter
Unit

Xenon
• Pressure
TANK
Regulation
Electronics

•
Power input Monitoring
(50 V DC) & Thruster
Control

Fig. 10. Main components of the EP subsystem.

to the thruster at the proper voltage and the electrical
filter unit dampens out discharge current oscillations
from the thruster. The thruster consumes 1220 W at
maximum power and the dry weight of the subsys-
tem is 29 kg. At launch, the tank contained 82.5 kg of
xenon, providing spacecraft with 4000 m/s of delta-V.
The EP system only contains limited redundancy.
The cathodes, XFC and BPRU are doubled whereas
the rest of the system is single string. The SMART-1
EP thruster is a stationary plasma thruster (PPS-
1350), which constitute a family of electric propul-
sion engines belonging to the category of Hall-effect
thrusters.
In this type of thrusters, electrons from an external
cathode enter an annular ceramic discharge chamber,
attracted by an anode piece. On their way to the anode,
the electrons encounter a radial magnetic field created
between inner and outer coils, causing cyclotron mo-
tion around the magnetic field lines and dramatically
increasing the probability of collision with neutrals.
Collisions between drifting electrons and xenon gas
create the plasma. The generated primary ions are ac-
celerated by the negative potential existing in the area
near the exit of the chamber due to the Hall-effect.
The external cathode acts also as a neutralizer, in-
jecting electrons into the beam, in order to maintain
zero-charge equilibrium in the thrust beam and on the
spacecraft.
The PPS-1350, shown in Fig. 11, has an exit di-
ameter of 100 mm. Even though the thruster can
operate at a maximum discharge power of 1500 W,
it is also capable of start-up and functioning at a
much reduced power (480 W). At beginning of life
(BOL), the SMART-1 spacecraft was designed to
provide a maximum of 1190 W of nominal discharge
power, which produces a nominal thrust of 68 mN at
a specific impulse of 1640 s. This family of thrusters
has a qualified lifetime of 7000 h in cycles at maxi-
 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468
Fig. 11. The SMART-1 PPS 1350 electric propulsion engine made
by SNECMA (F).
mum power, which corresponds to a total impulse of
106 Ns.
The EP system has been in operation since the very
early phases of the mission. It was switched on at 12:25
UTC on 30 September 2003 (3 days after launch) and
has since regularly been in operation. As of 25 August,
the engine had completed its 266th pulse and cumu-
lated a total ON time of about 3146 h. It had consumed
about 49 kg of xenon and imparted to the spacecraft
a velocity increment of 2330 m/s. Fig. 12 shows the
total cumulated time and for each pulse the ON and
OFF time on the left hand y-axis. The longest pulse
is out of scale as it lasted for 240 h and took place
from December 23rd and January 2nd. The in-flight
performance of the EP system has recently been de-
scribed in three papers [4–6]. In general the system
has shown a very good behaviour. However, an unex-
pected recurring event, an Optocoupler Single Event
Transient (OSET) took place, causing an EP shutdown.
The behaviour was characterised by a rapid drop in
anode current which was detected by the EP FDIR and
caused a “flame-out”. The problem was traced to be
caused by a radiation-induced sensitivity of an Opto-
coupler in the EP power control unit. The recovery to
this anomaly has been promptly implemented into the
on-board software by a patch which automatically de-
tects the OSET event and then initiates an autonomous
thruster restart.
463
3.9. Low thrust trajectory
The low thrust trajectory flown by SMART-l is also
part of the technology objectives of the mission. The
trajectory has been described in a number of papers
in the past (e.g. [7,8]). The trajectory is schemati-
cally shown in the two figures below. Fig. 13 shows
the transfer trajectory from the exit from the radiation
belts (perigee at 20,000 km) until Moon capture, as
computed before the flight, while Fig. 14 shows the
as-flown trajectory so far, plus the newly computed
trajectory from now until Moon capture.
The two trajectories are rather similar, but some dif-
ferences can be highlighted. The starting point is the
orbit at the exit of the radiation belts. The two orbits
are very similar as no substantial change was intention-
ally made in the escape strategy (continuous tangen-
tial thrusting to escape the radiation belts as quickly
as possible). The slight difference is due to the actual
eclipse periods occurred and due to the mentioned ex-
treme radiation environment encountered at the begin-
ning of the mission which did not allow to thrust unin-
terruptedly. After exiting the radiation belts, the orbit
expansion has been obtained by thrusting with an op-
timised strategy involving changes in thrust direction
and thrust and coast arcs. The process has been re-
peated many times taking into account the actual flight
thrust performance. The actual performance in terms
of thrust has been very close to the prediction. A vari-
ation of maximum +/ − 5% has been found during
the flight.
A major difference has been the on-board power
availability, which has proved to be between 100 W
and 200 W larger than in the prediction. This has al-
lowed to thrust at higher power, hence obtaining an
optimised thrust profile slightly different from the en-
visaged one.
Probably the main difference in the final part of the
trajectory is the absence in the new one (Fig. 14) of
the two final perigee jumps. As explained in [7,8] the
previous trajectory made use of lunar gravity assists
in order to increase the perigee altitude. In the new
one, it was decided to skip the two swing-bys as they
are rather time consuming, since the proper geometry
can only be achieved with a flight two months longer.
Swing-bys were considered necessary during the mis-
sion analysis in order to save fuel. However, the actual
fuel budget was found to be adequate to skip this phase
464 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468

SMART-1 EP ON and OFF Times

3200 Cum ON

3000 EP ON 60
2800 EP OFF
2600 50
2400
2200
2000 40
1800
Hours

1600
30
1400
1200
1000 20
800
600
10
400
200
0 0

18 Apr 04
20 Nov 03
01 Oct 03

28 Feb 04
09 Jan 04

07 Jun 04

27 Jul 04
Fig. 12. EP ON and OFF Times during first 11 months of mission.

Earth centred inertial projection on moon orbital plane Earth centred inertial projection on moon orbital plane
SPT100: launch by AR 5: 2002/09/21 -> 2003/12/29; 350 kg -> 295.764 kg 500000
5.0
400000
4.0
300000
3.0
200000
Y-coordinate (× 1E5 km)

Y-coordinate (km)

2.0
100000
1.0
0
0.0
-100000
-1.0
-200000
-2.0
-300000
-3.0
-400000
-4.0
-500000
-5.0 -500000 -200000 0 200000 500000
-5.0 -4.0 -3.0 -2.0 -1.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 X-coordinate (km)
X-coordinate (× 1E5 km) (direction of moon ascending mode w.r.t. EQ2000)
(ascending mode of moon orbital plane)
Fig. 14. As-flown trajectory.
Fig. 13. Pre-flight predicted trajectory.

handle and enter into the realm of multi-body dynam-

and save two months of transfer time. We have main- ics. The ESA flight dynamics team at ESOC has used
tained instead another technique, a sort of “weak fly- computational techniques to obtain the wanted effects
by”, outside the sphere of influence of the Moon. These mainly on the altitude and argument of perigee. These
regions, where more than one planetary body affects encounters will repeat regularly at each Moon revolu-
the flight of a spacecraft, are much more difficult to tion (period of 27.4 days). This is obtained by varying
 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468
Moon distance km
90000
80000
70000
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
0 24 48 72 96 120 144 168 192 216 240
Fig. 15. SMART-1 final approach to the Moon.
the period of the orbit so that a passage of SMART-1
at apogee takes place when the Moon is nearby. The
SMART-1 orbit is therefore in “resonance” with that
of the Moon. At the first encounter the ratio of the pe-
riods of the SMART-1 and Moon orbits was 1:5. At
the second encounter on September 15th, the ratio was
1:4, at the third one on October 12th, the ratio will
be 1:3 and finally the last orbit which will lead to the
capture on November 15th will have half the period
of the Moon’s orbit. Fig. 15 shows the final approach,
the x-axis origin is on November 11 at 00:00 UTC and
the units are hours.
The early arrival in Moon orbit is not the only
achievement of the good performance of the mission.
Due to the lower than expected fuel consumption, due
to the good navigation, engine performance and power
availability, we can also optimise the final lunar orbit
to better suit the scientific observations. Instead of the
envisaged polar orbit with perilune and apolune at 300
and 10,000 km altitude, respectively, SMART-1 will
fly a less eccentric orbit of 300×3000 km with a period
of 4.962 h. This provides a synchronicity of 1:5 with
the earth rotation, allowing coverage from the same
ground station each fifth revolution when the space-
craft is near apolune. This orbit also provides excellent
coverage conditions of the southern lunar hemisphere
as shown in Fig. 16.
3.10. Science and technology payload
The SMART-1 payload is composed of technology
and scientific experiments and its total mass is approx-
imately 19 kg. Seven SMART-1 instruments support
10 investigations. All the instruments have had their
commissioning performed. The results of the com-
465
Fig. 16. SMART-1 coverage of southern lunar hemisphere.
missioning and some preliminary observations of the
scientific instruments are given in another paper pre-
sented at this congress [9]. We concentrate here on the
technological aspects.
EPDP: Electric propulsion diagnostic package
(2.3 kg, 18 W). A suite of sensors for thruster diag-
nostics with ion energy up to 400 eV and spacecraft
contamination monitoring. Measurements have been
made on the ion density and two peaks have been
found at 30 and 50 eV possibly due to charge ex-
change Xe ions. The Langmuir probe has measured a
floating spacecraft potential orbital variation from 18
to 23 V during the thrusting phase.
SPEDE: Spacecraft potential, electron and dust ex-
periment (0.8 kg, 1.8 W) monitors the plasma oscilla-
tions during the EP operations.
KaTE: X/Ka-band telemetry and tele-command
(TT&C) experiment (6.2 kg, 28 W). An X-up/X-down
and Ka-down deep-space transponder running turbo-
codes, allowing up to 500 Kbps data rate from lunar
orbit. A KaTE test, using the ESA 15 m X-band an-
tenna at Perth, was conducted in January 2004, while
the X/Ka-band test using the NASA DSN DSS13
ground station took place in February 2004. The ESA
Ka-band station VIL 4 was commissioned in June
2004 and first tests of KaTE measurement modes and
range rate took place successfully and will continue
until November.
D-CIXS/XSM: Demonstration of a compact imaging
X-ray spectrometer (5.2 kg, 20 W, including XSM). A
12◦ ×32◦ FOV spectral imager in the 0.5–10 keV range
466 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468
Fig. 17. SMART-1 AMIE image of Europe and North Africa, taken
from a distance of 70,000 km in June 2004.
based on swept charge device detectors and micro-
collimators, measuring X-ray fluorescence from the
lunar surface discriminating the solar background by
means of the X-ray solar monitor. Several measure-
ments have been performed of bright celestial sources,
like SCO-X1 and others.
AMIE: Asteroid-Moon imaging experiment (2.2 kg,
9 W). A 5.3◦ FOV miniaturised camera with a four-
band fixed filter (0.75, 0.9 and 0.95
m wide-band
mineralogical filters and a 0.847
m narrow-band fil-
ter for the laser-link). The camera is based on high-
density 3-D cube-packed multi-chip module electron-
ics. Several images of the Earth and the Moon have
been taken during the cruise. An example is shown in
Fig. 17.
SIR: SMART-1 infrared spectrometer (2.3 kg,
4.2 W). A 1 mrad FOV point-spectrometer with 256
channels operating in the 0.9–2.4
m wavelength
range (NIR) for lunar mineralogy. A scan of the Moon
took place in February 2004 and other experiments
have also been performed.
LASER-LINK: Demonstration of a deep-space opti-
cal link acquisition (with AMIE), where a laser beam
is sent in the direction of the SMART-1 spacecraft by
the ESA optical ground station in Tenerife. The aim
of the experiment is to prepare for deep-space laser
communication links, by demonstrating the acquisi-
tion of the laser-link up to lunar distance and to vali-
date a novel beam arrangement in four sub-apertures
for mitigating the effect of atmospheric turbulence on
the laser beam. The laser link experiment is currently
on-going and the first results are promising. Roughly
one half of the objectives have been fulfilled so far.
The first step of the experiment was to determine an
efficient alignment procedure in order to align the op-
tical ground station (OGS) laser beam with SMART-
1. This procedure is now fully mastered and enables
to establish a mono-directional link between OGS and
SMART-1 with a laser pointing accuracy better than
+/ − 2 arcsec. The next step will be to redo the exper-
iment while slewing the spacecraft in order to study
laser beam propagation through atmosphere and space.
Several tries have already been attempted but unfortu-
nately hindered by bad weather conditions. New ex-
periments are planned before the moon capture.
3.11. Summary of accomplished mission objectives
The objectives of the SMART-1 missions are both
technological and scientific. Clearly the full scien-
tific return will be achieved only during the scientific
operations in lunar orbit. Concerning the technologi-
cal objective, the main purpose was the flight test of
electric primary propulsion. This is considered largely
achieved because of the following considerations:
• The engine has been functioning in space for more
than 3300 h with good performance.
• The optimisation, control and navigation of the
spacecraft during the powered operations have
been successfully performed.
• The EP has been monitored with the diagnostic
package and its effects have been shown and the
 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468
results are being analysed by the experts. So far, no
adverse effects have been observed on S/C subsys-
tems as the result of EP operation.
• The second lunar resonance has been successfully
achieved and the remaining one will follow before
lunar capture.
• The innovative aspect of combining EP with “weak
stability” gravity assists has been demonstrated.
Concerning the technology instruments they have all
been commissioned, thereby completing their objec-
tive for the lunar transfer phase.
4. Lessons learnt
4.1. EP operations
For the EP operation, the original intention was to
pre-programme up to 10 days of autonomous opera-
tions. While this has been accomplished once or twice,
in the general case, also very small variations in the
EP thrust level generates an increased divergence be-
tween the predicted and actual position in space. Over
a few days, this error propagates to a level that is un-
acceptable. The remedy is to recalculate the flight tra-
jectory prediction every few days. This, however, pre-
vents the long term planning that is desirable in order
to reduce ground operation costs. A possible solution
for future EP missions would therefore be to have on-
board an autonomous guidance and navigation system.
On SMART-1 such a system is run as a test package,
but with the control loop closed on the ground.
Another major aspect that we have learned in fly-
ing SMART-1 is the advantage of easily being able to
enhance on-board autonomous functions, and the ca-
pability to programme new functions (e.g. EP restart
after SET flame-outs).
4.2. Techniques to reduce development costs
• The Prime retained a large part of the develop-
ment functions: On SMART-1, the prime (SSC) re-
tained a significant part of the new developments.
This included the on-board avionics, the attitude
control system and the application software includ-
ing FDIR. This allowed an evolution of the design
at low cost by removing the contractual barriers
467
that usually prevent a solid architectural design and
changes in later stages. The end result was a coher-
ent architecture that was maintained throughout the
project.
• Extensive testing: Extensive testing together with
the capability of quickly recovering errors (software
based spacecraft) replaced exhaustive pre-analysis
and lengthy trade-offs.
• Joint-team approach: Rather than performing a
“surveillance” function derived from the detached
role of customer to contractor, the ESA project
team took an active part in design decisions as
well as providing a continuous and appreciated
peer-review of the prime’s work. The ESA in-
volvement allowed a high degree of visibility in
all areas, allowing them to verify adherence to re-
quirements beyond the normal reviewing of formal
documentation.
• Keep team small: During certain critical periods,
it was necessary to increase the manpower. This
was achieved by increasing the work-load for the
existing team rather than taking on new staff. This
allowed the core team to remain small and therefore
quickly respond to project needs.
5. Conclusions
The performance of SMART-1, ESA’s first mission
to the Moon, has so far been excellent. Due to more
available on-board power than predicted, combined
with good ground-based navigational techniques by
the flight control team, the travel time to the Moon has
been shortened by approximately 2 months compared
to initial predictions. The lunar capture is scheduled
for mid-November 2004, with scientific observations
starting once the final lunar orbit has been achieved in
mid-January 2005. In-flight commissioning of the sci-
entific instruments has successfully been performed,
leading to hopes for a very rewarding scientific phase
of the mission in 2005. SMART-1 is regarded as ESA-
s first “faster, better, cheaper” mission within the sci-
ence programme. As part of the lessons learnt activity,
the joint-team approach of the prime contractor and
ESA is regarded as an important element in the suc-
cessful realization of a technologically advanced low-
cost mission.
468 P. Rathsman et al. / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 455 – 468
References
[1] G.D. Racca, SMART—The first small mission for advanced
research in technology, Acta Astronautica 45 (4–9) (1999)
337–345.
[2] G.D. Racca, G.P. Whitcomb, B.H. Foing, The SMART-1
mission, ESA Bulletin 95 (1998) 72–81.
[3] P. Bodin, The SMART-1 attitude and orbit control system:
flight results from the first mission phase, AIAA GNC
Conference 2004.
[4] C.R. Koppel, F. Marchandise, D. Estublier, L. Jolivet,
The SMART-1 electric propulsion subsystem in flight
experience, AIAA-2004-3435, 40th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE
Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit, Fort Laurderdale,
Florida, USA, 11–14 July 2004.
[5] D. Milligan, D. Gestal, O. Camino, D. Estublier, C. Koppel,
SMART-1 electric propulsion operations, AIAA-2004-3436,
40th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference
and Exhibit, Fort Laurderdale, Florida, USA, 11–14 July
2004.
[6] D.M. Di Cara, D. Estublier, SMART-1: an analysis of
flight data, S4.02 55th International Astronautical Congress,
October 4–8, Vancouver, Canada, 2004. SMART-1 home
page: http://sci.esa.int/smart
[7] G.D. Racca, P. Rathsman, SMART-1 team, SMART-1 mission
description and development status, Planetary and Space
Science 50 (2002) 1323–1337.
[8] G.D. Racca, New challenges to trajectory design by the use of
electric propulsion and other new means of wandering in the
solar system, Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy
85 (2003) 1–24.
[9] B.H. Foing, G.D. Racca, SMART-1 team, S1 STWT et
al., ESA’S SMART-1 mission: status, first results and
lunar science goals, lQ2b.02 55th International Astronautical
Congress, October 4–8, Vancouver, Canada, 2004.
Further reading
[10] J. Kugelberg, P. Rathsman, S. Persson, Accommodating
electric propulsion on a small spacecraft, 51 IAF Congress
2000, Rio de Janeiro, Paper IAF-00.S.4.09.
[11] G.D. Racca, B.H. Foing, A solar-powered visit to the moon,
The SMART-1 mission, ESA Bulletin 113 (2003) 15–27.