Speaker
Description
The current trend and interest in a sustainable space crystallises the efforts of European space actors. One of the key themes of the ESA Cleanspace directives and French Space Operations Act from CNES includes the development of end-of-life technologies to minimize the number of debris after completion of the mission.
The introduction of space laws, guidelines and charter to reduce the number of space debris - with the aim of ensuring the safety of people on earth and leaving a “clean space” and a zero debris policy - has made the end of life phase in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) a very important one. When the risk of casualty is not compatible with an uncontrolled re-entry, the French Space Operations Act in particular proposes a Natural Assisted Re-entry or a more classical Controlled Re-entry for certain LEO satellites. Both strategies require the satellite’s attitude control to very low orbits with an even higher demanding controllability for Natural Assisted Re-entries.
The flight conditions at very low altitude below 200km (Very LEO) impose the consideration of high aerodynamic disturbance torques strongly impacting the sizing of the AOCS subsystem (Attitude and Orbit Control System) but also a need to master the drag force environment knowledge at very low altitude for a good implementation of mission objectives.
Previous R&T and Tech4SpaceCare (T4SC) studies conducted and co-funded in collaboration with CNES have initiated the development of an AOCS actuator based on (un)foldable membranes. The suite of studies demonstrated very interesting capabilities to control the spacecraft attitude and orbit during its deorbiting phase up to very low altitude, as well as proposed preliminary algorithms for its control. This work resulted in the implementation of a POC (“Proof Of Concept”) RAPACE (Rentrée Assistée Précise avec AOCS Contrôlé par Enrouleur) to be flown on a nano-satellite in the frame of the T4SC CNES project.
This presentation aims at introducing :
an overview of the current state of maturation of the proposed technical solution from both a software and hardware point of view,
the "Proof of Concept" (POC) envisaged for a flight demonstration.
