Outer Planets Operations Lessons Learned

In December 2007, NASA’s Planetary Science Division announced its intent to conduct Phase-2 studies for the next Outer Planets Flagship Mission (OPFM). One of the several tasks identified in the OPFM Statement of Work from NASA to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was to perform a Mission Operations Lessons Learned Study (referred to here on as the LL Study) with special focus on Phase E cost drivers and operations. The intent of the LL Study was to safely lower Phase E operations costs from those traditional to this class of mission. Consequently JPL requested its OPFM partner, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), to lead the LL Study.