Speaker
Description
Since the beginning of the space era, a significant amount of debris has progressively been generated in space. In addition, the rise of large low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations mean in the near future, space populations could significantly increase in key orbits. Founded in 2013, ASTROSCALE’s mission is to secure long-term spaceflight safety, and to become a key provider of reliable and cost-efficient spacecraft retrieval services to satellite operators.
The presentation will provide an overview of the ELSA-d end-of-life (EOL) mission, ASTROSCALE’s first semi-cooperative spacecraft retrieval technology and capability demonstration mission, with a targeted launch of late 2019. ELSA-d consists of two spacecraft – a chaser and a target. The chaser is equipped with proximity rendezvous technologies and a magnetic capture mechanism, whereas the target has a docking plate (DP) which enables it to be captured. This is Astroscale’s first step in the maturation of a range of key capabilities which would be present in a full customer mission, including: target search, target inspection, target approach and rendezvous, and target capture.
The presentation will briefly discuss the InnovateUK funded National in-orbit Servicing Ground Segment Facility, developed by Astroscale, hosted at the Satellite Applications Catapult, and considered a key capability for future services. Finally, there will be an examination of how ESA supports ELSA-d through a joint strategic agreement, and can continue to support in future missions.
