Speaker
Description
The EC FP7 RemoveDebris mission aims to be one of the world’s first Active Debris Removal (ADR) missions to demonstrate key technologies in-orbit in a cost-e_ective ambitious manner, including: net capture, harpoon capture, vision-based navigation, dragsail de-orbitation. The mission will utilise two CubeSats as artificial debris targets to demonstrate the technologies. In early 2018, the main 100 kg satellite was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) and deployed via the NanoRacks Kaber system into an orbit of around 400 km. The mission comes to an end in early 2019 with all space entities having been de-orbited.
This presentation reports on the LEOP and commissioning phase of the mission, along with initial operational results from the first of the demonstrations with a view to next steps in the operations planning.
