Speaker
Description
ClearSpace-1 Mission is part of ESA’s active debris removal/in-orbit servicing programme. Its objective is to rendezvous, capture and de-orbit a VESPA upper stage. The technology developed in this mission will set the ground for a recurrent commercial service for removal of space debris, as well as other in-orbit servicing capabilities.
Deimos is the full responsible for the GNC subsystem, in a close co-engineering approach with system level activities of Clearspace. The uncertainty around the true state of the target, as well as realistic constraints in the S/C configuration, pose a significant challenge for its capture. Recent developments in the mission have demonstrated the feasibility of solutions for the capture of VESPA and, in general, non-cooperative targets.
In this presentation, we demonstrate the several capabilities developed for the capture of space debris. The aspects to be presented are:
- Overall GNC architecture adopted for tackling the several approach phases;
- High fidelity functional engineering simulation facility for verification and validation of the developed solutions;
- Capability for on-line capture of the target, namely with dynamic computation of approach trajectory, vision-based navigation solution and control with performance robustness in the presence of system uncertainties;
- Demonstration of very close proximity safety operations;
