The development of the Herschel and Planck Programme, the largest scientific space programme of the European Space Agency (ESA), has culminated in May 2009 with the successful launch of the Herschel and Planck satellites onboard an Ariane 5 from the European Spaceport in Kourou. Both satellites are operating flawlessly since then and the scientific payload instruments provide world-class science. The Herschel/Planck Programme is a multi national cooperation with the managerial lead being taken by the European Space Agency with the major contributions from European industry for the spacecraft development and from scientific institutes, organized in five international consortia, for the payload instruments. The overall programme complexity called for various, adapted, management approaches to resolve technical and programmatic difficulties. Some of the management experiences of over a decade needed to realize such a satellite programme will be presented giving the lessons learnt for future programmes with the similar complexities.

Date Published: 4 August 2010
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7738, Modeling, Systems Engineering, and Project Management for Astronomy IV, 77380T (4 August 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.860152

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7738:
Modeling, Systems Engineering, and Project Management for Astronomy IV
George Z. Angeli; Philippe Dierickx, Editor(s)