Speakers
Description
In the last years D-Orbit has been involved in five major projects at European level on the topic of space debris.
Three projects were in the frame of the ESA'e Clean Space Initiative, while the other two were founded by the European Commission in the frame of the Horizon 2020 programme.
All those programmes are completed or about to be completed: these allowed D-Orbit to consistently advance in technology and expertise about space debris mitigation and remediation. D-Orbit operates in this market since 2011. The core product that was developed through those activities is an autonomous propulsive decommissioning device that would allow a reliable and efficient end-of-mission manoeuvre, leading to End-of-life.
Within the ESA CleanSat project, D-Orbit carried out a concurrent design activity, together with ESA and the three major European LSIs (i.e. Airbus, OHB and Thales-Alenia Space), exploring the feasibility and analysing the requirements of an autonomous decommissioning device, based on solid rocket motor, able to provide large satellites with a direct-re-entry capability. A key technology of solid rocket motors is the Thrust Vector Control mechanism: this feature was studied and developed in another ESA Clean Space activity.
An in-orbit demonstration mission of such an autonomous decommissioning device was partly funded through the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument programme: the D-SAT mission. D-SAT was a 3U CubeSat Satellite equipped with the D-Orbit’s “D3” decommissioning device, that was launched into orbit in June 2017. The D3 device was successfully fired on October 2017, demonstrating all the key capabilities, although the target orbit was not reached.
The D3 device was further developed thought an activity funded thought the Horizon 2020 Protec programme: that was the TeSeR project (Technology for Self-Removal), led from Airbus and carried out by a consortium of 11 companies and academia, of which D-Orbit was the second largest contributor.
D-Orbit believes that the Space Debris are an enormous business opportunity, and is constantly monitoring evolutions from the market and regulatory points of view, refining accordingly its business plans. This expertise was capitalised in another ESA Clean Space activity for assessing the size of the Space Debris Mitigation market.
From those activities emerged a clear need for an high level of autonomy and reliability of decommissioning systems, the need to develop thrust vectoring systems for solid rocket motors, as well as large demand for service-oriented end-of-life strategies. For the future, D-Orbit is working for optimising its technology for larger spacecraft and mega-constellations, looking at the same time to the Active Debris Removal and In-Orbit Servicing market.
