The Road to a TERRA Operational System

EOS-Terra (formerly known as AM-1) is the first in a series of NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) spacecraft. This paper describes what it took to get ready for Terra, the problems encountered along the way, and the challenge of making an integrated system and integrated team out of many diverse systems and groups, including the international partners and agencies. This paper describes how the coordination role for system resources scheduling, system configuration management, and status reporting was implemented, and the vital role this coordination effort played for enhanced productivity and improved communication across the teams. Lessons which can be learned from this major effort are presented.