After
information about the experiments and other activities was
collected, engineers used the information to calculate time constraints based on
the orbit of the vehicle. A simple example of these constraints could include
when photographs of a specific earth site could be taken in daylight.
We called the calculated time constraints "orbit opportunities" and create them using many different computer programs. Each of these computer programs were designed to solve a specific type of orbit opportunity problem.
Once the orbit opportunity availability problem was solved, the information was transferred to module of ESP called the Opportunity Editor.
The editor provided tools to manipulate the opportunity data such as time-biases, unions, intersections, complements and it could tabulate and plot the data.
This plot compares the K-band coverage to Sband coverage for a 5-day period. The bar charts at the bottom show where the coverages are. The line chart at the top shows the differences in Sband and K-band. It show, for example, that at about 1/12:45 there is a 17 minute period of K-band without Sband; and there are many periods for Sband without K-band communications.
Sband is omni-directional compared to K-band. The labels Sband and K-band are inconsistent in their use of a dash on purpose; it reduced the chance of mistaking one for the other.