Speaker
Description
In-Orbit Servicing means performing activities through robotics technology onto a spacecraft or, more generically, a “space object” in space, right when it is in orbit. Today Satellite Operators deal with unserviceable satellites in orbit that might need to be repaired, refurbished, refueled, reconfigured, or placed in orbits where they can last for many more years, or deorbited (either closer to Earth where they get burned to dust by our planet’s atmosphere or into “cemetery orbits” where their presence does not interfere with active space objects safe operation).
Moreover, as the small satellite demand will experience fast pace growth over the next 10 years, we are left with the urgent task of designing solutions for sustainability and reduction of orbital debris in space.
IOS are therefore defined as the emerging concepts of products or services that can meet those market needs.
How does Avio imagine to address such market, as well as Space Debris issue?
Vega Family of Launchers are, by their very nature, designed to deliver payloads into orbits where space debris proliferate. Question we’ve asked ourselves is the following: what if, potentially for each Vega mission, some payloads are delivered in LEO and, at the same time, a robotic solution could be deployed to counter space junk and to operate different types of services?
Answer is that, by defition, such solution can result as one of the most promising and surely cost-effective, as a significant proportion of the overall costs for a single IOS mission (related to the access to space) will be partially borne by the Vega Launcher passengers of satellite deployment.
Such concept relies on the assumption, based on historical data observation and future launches projection, that not all the flights occur at unitary filling factor, thus leaving enough "room" for a low-weight solution to take part of a standard Vega mission, thus enabling new services at marginal cost.
We do believe that conceiving IOS as an end-to-end mission, integrated with launch service, can be a game changer for this emerging market: the Launch Service Provider executes at the same time the injection in the reference orbit of a payload (bearing as usual the launch service expenses) and In-Orbit Services, with the latter being provided by the – properly configured - upper stage of the launch vehicle itself. This results in a unique end-to-end solution for satellite operators and, by definition, the cheapest possible solution for any customer interested in the specific service.
The overall technical solution conceived by Avio should be ideally be fitted-for integration, as auxiliary payload, onto Ariane family of launchers, in order to address the market abiding in more energetic orbits (MEO and GEO).
