INSA scientific activities in the space astronomy area

TL;DR

This paper details INSA's diverse activities supporting space astronomy operations, including real-time spacecraft management, scientific infrastructure, radio astronomy, and research collaborations at ESAC and MDSCC.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive overview of INSA's recent contributions to space astronomy, highlighting activities beyond traditional spacecraft operations.

Findings

INSA supports ESA missions XMM-Newton and Herschel.

Activities include science operations support and infrastructure development.

Involvement in radio astronomy and scientific research projects.

Abstract

Support to Astronomy operations is an important and long-lived activity within INSA. Probably the best known (and traditional) INSA activities are those related with real-time spacecraft operations: Ground station maintenance and operation (Ground station engineers and operators); spacecraft and payload real-time operation (spacecraft and instruments controllers); computing infrastructure maintenance (operators, analysts) and general site services.In this paper, we'll show a different perspective, probably not so well-known, presenting some INSA recent activities at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) and NASA Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex (MDSCC) directly related to scientific operations. Basic lines of activity involved include: Operations support for science operations; system and software support for real time systems; technical administration and IT support; R \& D activities, radioastronomy (at MDSCC and ESAC) and scientific research projects. This paper is structured as follows: first, INSA activities in two ESA cornerstone astrophysics missions, XMM-Newton and Herschel, will be outlined. Then, our activities related to Science infrastructure services, represented by the Virtual Observatory (VO) framework and the Science Archives development facilities are briefly shown. Radio Astronomy activities will be described afterwards, and finally, a few research topics in which INSA scientists are involved will be also described.