Description du projet
Un système multicaméra innovant pour déterminer l’attitude des engins spatiaux
L’observation des étoiles représente une source d’inspiration pour beaucoup de personnes, mais pour les concepteurs d’engins spatiaux, il s’agit d’une tâche essentielle. Les suiveurs d’étoiles ont vu le jour dans les années 1990 pour les grands satellites et s’apparentaient alors à des équipements très précis mais coûteux. Aujourd’hui, le marché émergent des petits satellites exige des solutions de taille, de poids et de puissance réduits, et surtout des solutions à faible coût. Or, pour répondre à ces exigences, les suiveurs d’étoiles actuels ne sont pas suffisamment stables dans le temps. C’est dans cette optique qu’un consortium de PME italiennes a conçu une innovation de rupture destinée au marché des petits satellites: ARGO, un système multicaméra offrant des performances très précises et stables dans le temps à un prix abordable. Le projet ARGO, financé par l’UE, cofinance son développement ainsi que sa validation au sol et en orbite.
Objectif
"The project addresses the sector of Spacecraft Attitude Determination from star measurements which is a critical element of the Attitude and Orbit Control System for any spacecraft. Nowadays the need of high accuracy for demanding satellite missions is achievable through high-quality star trackers, but high costs and lack of flexibility are still a gap to overcome for covering the needs of emerging space markets, like the ones related to low mass and size satellites, called SmallSats. The Consortium, composed by two high tech Italian SMEs, intend to pave the way towards next generation star tracker systems by proposing a disruptive innovation for this sector: ARGO, an innovative multicamera system for spacecraft autonomous attitude determination by means of star observation, able to offer high flexibility, robustness, accuracy, scalability and significant reduction of production costs compared to products currently on the market.
ARGO's main advances with respect to the state-of-art have been conceived, developed and successfully tested by EICAS in previous R&D activities. ARGO is ready for TRL6, having proved ARGO feasibility in relevant environment at TRL5 - through a preliminary night sky test campaign - by means of a prototype based on low-cost industrial cameras.
The purpose of this proposal is to accomplish the following steps necessary for fully exploiting the ARGO potential and reaching the commercialisation stage:
• from the scientific/technical point of view, to bring the ARGO technology readiness level up to TRL9, by developing a system completed and ""flight qualified"" through significant tests and demonstrations both ground and flight In Orbit Demonstrations (IOD)
• from the business point of view, to take the necessary actions with end-users and relevant stakeholders to accelerate and maximise the impact of the proposed disruptive innovation and to actuate the Consortium business strategy to reach the market.
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Champ scientifique
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringastronautical engineeringspacecraft
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringcontrol systems
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensorsoptical sensors
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managemententrepreneurship
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringsatellite technology
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinateur
10128 TORINO
Italie
L’entreprise s’est définie comme une PME (petite et moyenne entreprise) au moment de la signature de la convention de subvention.