Flight Team Development in Support of LCROSS - A Class D Mission

The LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) project presented a number of challenges to the preparation for mission operations. A class D mission under NASA s risk tolerance scale, LCROSS was governed by a $79 million cost cap and a 29 month schedule from "authority to proceed" to flight readiness. LCROSS was NASA Ames Research Center s flagship mission in its return to spacecraft flight operations after many years of pursuing other strategic goals. As such, ARC needed to restore and update its mission support infrastructure, and in parallel, the LCROSS project had to newly define operational practices and to select and train a flight team combining experienced operators and staff from other arenas of ARC research. This paper describes the LCROSS flight team development process, which deeply involved team members in spacecraft and ground system design, implementation and test; leveraged collaborations with strategic partners; and conducted extensive testing and rehearsals that scaled in realism and complexity in coordination with ground system and spacecraft development. As a testament to the approach, LCROSS successfully met its full mission objectives, despite many in-flight challenges, with its impact on the lunar south pole on October 9, 2009.