Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PERIOD (PERIOD - PERASPERA In-Orbit Demonstration)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-01-01 al 2022-12-31
When one thinks about how satellites and spacecraft are constructed today, the picture which immediately springs to mind is the large clean room, the heavy personnel needs and the large launcher required to transport a volume-constrained payload to space. PERIOD seeks to disrupt the status quo by showing there is an alternative to the traditional approach of manufacturing, assembling and validating space hardware on-ground with direct in-orbit manufacturing and assembly using robotics, autonomy and modularity. The advantages are multiple. No more constraints on the overall volume and design of large-scale satellite antennas. Ample opportunities to construct larger space infrastructures such as modular space stations. On top of this, the ISMA (In-Space Manufacturing and Assembly) technologies would allow for the upgrade and repair of existing spacecraft and satellites, thereby fostering the sustainable usage of space through plug and play modularity.
The ISMA industry can bring revolution to space market achieving a sustainable space ecosystem and bringing new services. The PERIOD consortium is confident that a decade from now, considering a stepwise evolution, many different capabilities will be introduced. Large-antenna commercial satellites autonomously assembled in space will provide citizens with a wide range of services, and scientific satellites will allow us to see further into deep space than ever before. Payloads will be autonomously exchanged on standard reconfigurable satellites. The majority of satellites will be repaired, serviced or de-orbited in space, meaning that we will be able to better face the space debris issue. Advanced space robotics will be used for local and autonomously manufacturing and assembly on the space stations in LEO and lunar orbit.
The specific objectives of the PERIOD project in phase A/B1 were to develop the core technologies ESROCOS, ERGO and InFuse to TRL5, to evaluate the available Standard Interconnect components (SIROM, HOTDOCK, iSSI) for the specific assembly demonstration scenario in a benchmark, to evaluate assembly capability in a breadboard for ESROCOS, ERGO, InFuse, I3DS and SIs, to define an orbital demonstrator concept along with its system technical requirements for satellite manufacturing & assembly and for attachment & refuelling experiment up to the System Requirements Review (SRR), and to implement communication and dissemination activities to inform the space community and potential customers on the In-Space Manufacturing and Assembly (ISMA) capabilities and provide transparency on risks and mitigations. The successful implementation of these objectives will lead in the future to the generation of independent European capacities allowing Europe building the future orbital infrastructure and being competitive on the ISMA markets.
The ISMA industry can bring revolution to space market achieving a sustainable space ecosystem and bringing new services. The PERIOD consortium is confident that a decade from now, considering a stepwise evolution, many different capabilities will be introduced. Large-antenna commercial satellites autonomously assembled in space will provide citizens with a wide range of services, and scientific satellites will allow us to see further into deep space than ever before. Payloads will be autonomously exchanged on standard reconfigurable satellites. The majority of satellites will be repaired, serviced or de-orbited in space, meaning that we will be able to better face the space debris issue. Advanced space robotics will be used for local and autonomously manufacturing and assembly on the space stations in LEO and lunar orbit.
The specific objectives of the PERIOD project in phase A/B1 were to develop the core technologies ESROCOS, ERGO and InFuse to TRL5, to evaluate the available Standard Interconnect components (SIROM, HOTDOCK, iSSI) for the specific assembly demonstration scenario in a benchmark, to evaluate assembly capability in a breadboard for ESROCOS, ERGO, InFuse, I3DS and SIs, to define an orbital demonstrator concept along with its system technical requirements for satellite manufacturing & assembly and for attachment & refuelling experiment up to the System Requirements Review (SRR), and to implement communication and dissemination activities to inform the space community and potential customers on the In-Space Manufacturing and Assembly (ISMA) capabilities and provide transparency on risks and mitigations. The successful implementation of these objectives will lead in the future to the generation of independent European capacities allowing Europe building the future orbital infrastructure and being competitive on the ISMA markets.
The demonstration mission for an orbital factory was defined with the mission architecture and the operational interactions between the operational entities. The relevant safety aspects for ISS operations were identified. The costing of the phases B2/C/D was generated based on the defined system concept and development and verification logic. A trade-off was performed to finally select Bartolomeo as the accommodation platform of the orbital factory. A preliminary design of the factory architecture for integrating the robotic equipment (arm, tools, workbench, sensors, avionics) was developed including the design of the antenna reflector manufacturing of the client satellite, the CubeSat satellite concept with the SIs and the refuelling concept based on ASSIST. Pre-Development activities of SRC PERASPERA technologies ESROCOS, ERGO, InFuse, I3DS were performed by implementing and testing the specified interfaces between the different software building blocks and to close identified implementation gaps to advance the building blocks to TRL 5. A test and validation plan of the building blocks was drafted to evaluate their technology readiness assessment (TRA) and validate their usage with respect to the envisioned technical specification of the project. The robotic simulation was configured for the PERIOD reference scenario on Bartolomeo and initial analyses on arm reachability were performed. A preliminary architecture of the Cyber Physical System based on the mission data model was defined. The SI benchmarking work has been fully implemented leading to the generation of a large amount of data allowing to get a very good insight into the status on the SI development. The breadboard definition and demonstration plan was established including the test case definition. The test cases were finally implemented in the robotic breadboard at Airbus. The key SRC technologies ESROCOS, ERGO, InFuse, I3DS and the SIs SIROM and HOFDOCK were integrated in the demonstration hardware for testing the basic assembly scenarios consisting of successfully performing the coupling between a satellite core module and a payload module both equipped with the SIs. The preliminary system requirements were generated and submitted at PRR and SRR. Various dissemination activities were implemented (workshops, papers, articles, banner, poster, leaflet, social media).
Progress beyond the state of the art will be mainly related to the development and tests on robotics and autonomy which deliver the enabling technologies necessary for object handling, manipulation and assembly. The core technologies ESROCOS, ERGO and InFuse will be brought to TRL5, the available Standard Interconnect components (SIROM, HOTDOCK, iSSI) will be evaluated for the assembly scenario in a benchmark, and the assembly capability will be tested in a breadboard for assembly operations.
For developing the ISMA market customers are expecting a robust concept validation (value for customer, demonstration of the capabilities), transparency (communication on needs, risks and mitigations), provider reliability (technology mastering, standardization) and profitability (availability of accurate business cases, regulation, Insurance & Policies). The efficiency of the measures required to positively impact these four criteria is lowered by barriers related to the low technology maturity, the insufficient level of demonstration and the lack of communication, standardization and regulation in this domain. These barriers are the main explanation for the current ISMA & OOS market immaturity. PERIOD is overcoming some of these barriers and therefore satisfying core market and customer expectations by advancing on technology and process maturation, verification means definition for the Factory, robust demonstration, transparency on risks and mitigations, and addressing ISMA & OOS market and use cases, standardization and regulation. Eliminating these barriers will be one major contribution of the project for realizing the European ambition to provide independent ISMA capabilities to be implemented in European commercial on-orbit services.
For developing the ISMA market customers are expecting a robust concept validation (value for customer, demonstration of the capabilities), transparency (communication on needs, risks and mitigations), provider reliability (technology mastering, standardization) and profitability (availability of accurate business cases, regulation, Insurance & Policies). The efficiency of the measures required to positively impact these four criteria is lowered by barriers related to the low technology maturity, the insufficient level of demonstration and the lack of communication, standardization and regulation in this domain. These barriers are the main explanation for the current ISMA & OOS market immaturity. PERIOD is overcoming some of these barriers and therefore satisfying core market and customer expectations by advancing on technology and process maturation, verification means definition for the Factory, robust demonstration, transparency on risks and mitigations, and addressing ISMA & OOS market and use cases, standardization and regulation. Eliminating these barriers will be one major contribution of the project for realizing the European ambition to provide independent ISMA capabilities to be implemented in European commercial on-orbit services.