The newly launched Pandora satellite became the first on-orbit NASA mission to be managed from the University of Arizona's Multi-Mission Operation Center, or MMOC, on Jan. 16, marking a milestone in the U of A's decades-long history in space research and exploration.

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Five days after Pandora launched into space via a SpaceX Falcon 9 on Jan. 11, the MMOC team assumed its mission control role from the Colorado-based aerospace company Blue Canyon Technologies. The company was responsible for building and integrating the spacecraft and verified that the satellite was operating as expected before making the planned handover to the MMOC. 

"Pandora is the first NASA mission for which the University of Arizona is responsible for complete, end-to-end mission operations, including spacecraft commanding, telemetry monitoring, anomaly response and day-to-day flight operations, so this is breaking ground in that new territory for the university," said Nic Altamirano, the acting MMOC manager and mission operations project manager for Pandora. "This mission allows us to be able to command and control the spacecraft, generate command sequences and work in a cross-disciplinary environment to showcase that the U of A has these capabilities, and that we cannot only do it for Pandora, but also other NASA missions."

Altamirano and the rest of the team have been working with Daniel Apai, the U of A science lead of the mission and its exoplanet science team, and a professor for astronomy and planetary sciences at the U of A Steward Observatory and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. The Pandora satellite will provide in-depth study of at least 20 known planets orbiting distant stars to determine the composition of their atmospheres – especially the presence of hazes, clouds and water.

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Tomás Díaz de la Rubia, senior vice president for research and partnerships, watched the Pandora launch in person from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, and said he is thrilled to see the U of A take this central mission control role. 

"The Pandora mission exemplifies the University of Arizona's ability to integrate complex mission operations with world-class space science," Díaz de la Rubia said. "By operating this mission from Tucson, we are directly executing our strategic vision to shape the future of space sciences while expanding our understanding of the universe's potential for life."

The university has played key roles in many other NASA missions ranging from the Ranger and Apollo programs of the 1960s to the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission to building an instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope. The U of A is ranked No. 4 in space science globally, according to U.S. News and World Report, and No. 4 in NASA funding, according to a National Science Foundation HERD survey. The university is also one of handful of U.S. universities with the capability to provide mission operations support for NASA Class D, or high risk tolerance, missions like Pandora.

Built for mission control

Through a contract with NASA, the MMOC, housed at the Applied Research Building on the U of A's main campus, will manage and track the spacecraft's operations in real time, monitor telemetry – data sent down from the satellite – and overall spacecraft health throughout its primary, 13-month quest.

Pandora is the first space telescope designed specifically to conduct detailed, multi-wavelength observations of exoplanets as they pass in front of their host stars. Equipped with an 18-inch mirror and advanced spectroscopic instruments, the satellite measures the tiny dip in the host star's brightness during a transit and analyzes the starlight that filters through a planet's atmosphere. This approach will allow scientists to identify chemical elements and molecules within exoplanet atmospheres—such as water vapor, oxygen and other volatile gases—that are essential building blocks of life to infer planetary climate and potential habitability. 

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To ensure these atmospheric signals are accurately interpreted, Pandora will also closely observe the host stars themselves, collecting data on stellar variability and activity that could otherwise obscure planetary atmospheric signatures. In other words, a planet's atmosphere needs to be backlit by a uniform section of their star's surface.

"Our Pandora team will observe tiny changes in stellar surfaces and catch shadows of other planets. For these challenging measurements, we need precise control over the telescope's systems while it is speeding around the Earth seven times faster than a bullet. We need the perfect mix of science planning and mission operations," Apai said.

The 10-person mission operations center team includes a mission operations manager, software engineers and developers, systems and operations engineers and a documentarian from the Arizona Space Institute and the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the U of A College of Science. 

About every 45 minutes, Pandora has the potential to establish contact with a ground station on Earth. These ground contacts are short communication windows during which the spacecraft can send data to the ground and receive commands from the operations team. When these opportunities occur, the MMOC team manages the scheduling, coordination and use of the communications link to support spacecraft operations.

"We are super excited about taking over mission control for Pandora. It is something that has been many years in the making," said Erika Hamden, director of the Arizona Space Institute. "It's so cool to see it finally happening, and it's exciting because Pandora is expected to help astronomers increase our understanding of exoplanets. It's such an honor to be a part of that."

A version of this story originally appeared on the Office of Research and Partnerships website.