Quality Analysis of Telemetry Tracking and Command at Ground Stations using the Association Rule Mining Approach

Rizki Permala (Research Center for Satellite Technology, Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Cagak Satelit Road Km 0.4, Rancabungur, Bogor Regency, 16310, Indonesia)
Nurrochman Ferdiansyah (Research Organization for Aeronautics and Space, Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Cagak Satelit Road Km 0.4, Rancabungur, Bogor Regency, 16310, Indonesia)
Nurul Muhtadin (Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Cagak Satelit Road Km 0.4, Rancabungur, Bogor Regency, 16310, Indonesia)

Journal of ICT Research and Applications
Vol. 17 No. 3 (2023)

LAPAN built several remote ground stations to support the telemetry tracking and command (TTC) system for the LAPAN-A2 and LAPAN-A3 satellites. These remote ground stations are located in Kototabang/KT (West Sumatra), Biak/BK (Papua), Parepare/PR (South Sulawesi), Rumpin/RP, Rancabungur/RB (Bogor, West Java), and Svalbard/SV (Norway). Problems that often arise in the TTC process are telecommands not being sent (commands sent from the ground station to the satellite) or telemetry packages not being received (feedback on telecommands sent by the satellite to the ground station). This research attempted to calculate and analyze the quality of TTC using a data-mining approach, i.e., rule mining. The calculations were performed using five main parameters: satellite name, ground station, azimuth, altitude, and communication status. The research output consisted of a combination of remote ground station parameters that may result in a successful or failed TTC. For the LAPAN-A3 satellite at the Svalbard ground station, 19 failed communication combinations were generated with a dataset of 57,029. Communication failures occur in azimuth and elevation, i.e., areas blocked by obstacles.