An itemized list of planned events for a spacecraft and of the ground commands needed to execute these. It is generated by a spacecraft event file (SEF) and by schedules for each tracking station of the deep-space network.

At NASA, the ace managing a mission needs the SOE list to compare predicted events with those that actually happen. In addition, the list of commands is used to uplink commands and times to the spacecraft's computer, and to produce an individual SOE for each tracking station.