GMSPAZIO Satellite Tracking Toolkit

Project Information

GSTT

Grant agreement ID: 683830

DOI

10.3030/683830

Project closed

EC signature date 6 June 2015

Start date 1 July 2015

End date 31 December 2015

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Space

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

GMSPAZIO SRL
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GSTT (GMSPAZIO Satellite Tracking Toolkit)

Reporting period: 2015-07-01 to 2015-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

GMSPAZIO Satellite Tracking Toolkit (GSTT) helps satellite owners/managers to successfully operate facing Space Situational Awareness and Space Surveillance & Tracking issues.
GSTT supports the users steering a satellite platform to a safer position preventing collisions and aiming to extend expected lifetime cycle with more accurate and precise manoeuvres while reducing costs and delivery time, by using the system Planning, Scheduling, Acquisition and Data Processing features. GSTT measurements applied to manage GEO space platforms give satellite owners the capability to assess real platform position with a maximum margin of error of 20 meters.
GSTT is a ground-breaking innovation capable to produce a major contribution to the maintenance and safety of European strategic assets such as GALILEO constellation. The TRL of GSTT is Level 8 (system complete and qualified), a specific version of GSTT named GISAT (GMSPAZIO Satellite Awareness Toolkit) is fully operational at an Italian Ministry of Defence site since December 2012.
Starting from the tested prototype, currently used by the Italian Ministry of Defence the Feasibility Study has fully achieved the expected results:
1) identifying the best process of industrialization and customization, the product capability and flexibility, through an accurate engineering analysis, and the case-study to use for a relevant field-test (with the expected results to validate the solution);
2) identifying the potential market to target for this solution and the most interesting segments to start penetrating (geographic and commercial segments), with the analisys of the main competitors and of the potential risks (SWAT), and the price policy to adopt ;
3) designing a robust Business Plan forecasting 5 years of production and commercialization of the solution.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The main actions carried out were:
- the definition of industrialization process of the system through an engineering analysis
- the Market Analysis
- the 5-year projection Business Plan.

To assess the technical feasibility we conducted a preliminary study relative to:

1) The Analysis of further alternative technologies:
- new types of Sensors (optical, IR, UV, RF) in order to extend the Spectrum of acquired data
- better types of moving mechanism (new type of motors and bearings) in order to improve performance both in terms of speed and pointing precision;
- new sets of image and data processing algorithms - exploring the parallel and GPUs computing opportunities – in order to minimize initial Threat Discovery Time and Improve Tracking Capabilities.

2) The Project Engineering and Industrial Process definition: we have already started an internal project aimed to define a simple set of GSTT elements to be used like a LEGO™ set, i.e. a set of SSA-SST simple subsystems integrated in different ways able to satisfy diverse user needs, copying with desired performance and available budgets

3) Verification of the current market interest, detailed analysis of the customer needs and individuation of Test Environmental: we identified potential customers with whom we hope to establish relationships already in the testing phase of the final solution.

4) Identification of Strategies and Investments to sustain the process and to guarantee the IPR.

We carried out a market analysis, comprising risks and sensitivity analysis, to verify GSTT economic viability in terms of market trends, competitors and competitive solutions, potential customers identification/description as well as exploitation model.

Moreover, we developed a detailed Business Plan for the next 5 years, attached.
The outcome from these studies is significant with regard to:
- positive market trend in the last two decades (in Europe).
- competitors and their solutions: there are no available products able to compete with GSTT in terms of technical features and measurement accuracy.
- capability to respond to identified market needs (potential customers).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Currently, operators can rely just on telemetry data collected in real time, stored on board and then send to ground stations at defined time interval after on board processes transforming them into statistical data useful only to long term evaluations and not really useful to quick and precise orbital position determination. GSTT represents a disruptive technology able to satisfy the following user requirements:
1) the need to have quick and precise measurement of “my asset position” in the space along time
2) the capability to process measured data in order to obtain a precise forecast of “where will my space platform be at a certain time in the future”
3) the possibility to carefully evaluate proximity position data to estimate collision probability, reaction time and manoeuvres entity on the way to save resources and avoid undesired damages (collision avoidance capability)
4) the capability (still not implemented in the technologies at the state of the art) to exchange data in standard formats between different data sources & destinations (RSO Catalog). This is one of the main opportunities to be reactive and possibly also proactive in Space Situational Awareness - SSA & Space Surveillance and Tracking – SST (International SSA cooperation).

Compared with the current solutions, GSTT offers the capability to be autonomous, independent, precise, at very competitive costs, both for initial investment, and for year maintenance and assistance.
e.g.: comparing with Boeing’s solution, adopting GSTT you can pay 1,5 M€ in 5 years for a single system and services, instead of 5 M US$ for rents and services in the same period, while GSTT ensures a more precise accuracy of the data provided. In contrast, GSTT has the unique capability to produce a proven orbital measurement along just one night of observations (8 hours on average), thus dramatically reducing to about 1/10th (from 72 to 8 hours) the time to take decisions for space platforms managers. The real benefit for the operator is to avoid the risk of losing a single satellite (generating a ROM profit of about € 50,000 per day) thanks to the innovative, more accurate and faster GSTT system for precise orbital determination and conjunction analysis risk evaluation (average cost from € 500.000 to € 1.000.000 – one to three sensing measurement sites).

For a detailed description of the economic impact of the project, please refer to the business plan attached.
Is given below a summary of expected revenues for the years 2016-2020:
- 2016: euro 1.000.000
- 2017: euro 1.700.000
- 2018: euro 3.700.000
- 2019: euro 5.600.000
- 2020: euro 7.800.000

View of GSTT prototype