System Engineering Implementation of the Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) Mission

The Investigation of Convective Updrafts, or INCUS, mission is a NASA Earth Ventures Mission that will measure, for the first time, the convective mass flux of convective storm systems in space using three Ka-band atmospheric radars. The INCUS payload also includes a radiometer identical to the TEMPEST-D radiometer. INCUS is a Class D mission led by a principal investigator. It is a cost-capped mission. In order to reduce the mission cost, the INCUS project took advantage of the heritage designs of RainCube, TEMPEST-D, and the 3-meter KaTENNa reflector by Tendeg. In addition, the INCUS spacecraft is Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) Venus-class spacecraft bus. The INCUS flight system is composed of three different types of subsystems: heritage design, commercial, and new design. The goal of the system engineering approach is to meet the INCUS science requirements by integrating these subsystems in the most cost-effective manner. The first step was to find an optimum design that minimizes the changes to the heritage and commercial subsystems. The design changes are mostly caused by the unique INCUS requirements (such as multiple beams to increase the imaging swath and higher resolution) and parts obsolescence since the implementation of the heritage missions. Since three flight units must be built, the best implementation approach was to build prototypes as quickly as possible to test the design changes. This plan was not as effective as planned due to the supply chain issue in the beginning of the project. The second step was to design the new subsystems to enable the heritage and commercial subsystems to be used within their capabilities. The most significant challenge to this approach was that the launch environment was unknown until the entire design was completed. It is also important to develop a contingency plan for a high-risk subsystem. The implementation plan must be flexible enough to accommodate unexpected events such as inaccurate models/analyses and test/on-orbit failures of the heritage/commercial subsystems during the development period. Risk management as a Class D mission is an essential tool to make optimum decisions within the cost-cap. Quantitative risk management was used for the INCUS implementation approach.