The FDO is responsible for the generation of daily deorbit opportunities (DOPS) covering the entire span of the flight.
The DOPS will take all planned maneuvers into account or will be annotated as to the trajectory differences.
Daily Primary Landing Site (PLS) and End of Mission (EOM) selections will be annotated.
A DOPS is generated pre-flight. In addition, during the flight, the need to generate a new DOPS is evaluated after every major trajectory event or significant state vector update.
Weather/PLS Evaluation
The FDO is responsible for coordinating with the JSC Spaceflight Meteorology Group (SMG) to evaluate the daily weather conditions at the three CONUS landing sites (EDW, KSC, and NOR).
Forecast sheets will be distributed to FLIGHT and CAPCOM.
Based on weather conditions and mission constraints, the FDO will recommend a no-comm Primary Landing Site (PLS) for the next day.
The final PLS selection for the next two days will be uplinked on the Mission Summary message.
EDW is preferred for the no-comm PLS due to more margin for energy downmode and systems failures as well as more stable year-round weather.
Orbit/Rendezvous
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