Standard And Modular Microlauncher BAsed services

Project Information

SAMMBA

Grant agreement ID: 870451

DOI

10.3030/870451

Project closed

EC signature date 18 December 2019

Start date 1 January 2020

End date 31 December 2022

Funded under

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

Total cost

€ 2 529 897,50

EU contribution

€ 2 529 897,50

Coordinated by

GTD SISTEMAS DE INFORMACION SA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SAMMBA (Standard And Modular Microlauncher BAsed services)

Reporting period: 2021-07-01 to 2022-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The key concept in NewSpace is multiplicity: the spaceports target to attract multiple microlaunch concepts available in the market, with their own business cases each, while microlaunch concepts look forward to launching from multiple spaceports seeking a launch rate at a wider range of azimuths that enable their own business plan goals. SAMMBA target is to endow Spaceport Operators with technologies and methodologies providing standard and modular Base Services (Standard And Modular Microlaunchers BAse services) to achieve multi-launcher operations successfully under NewSpace requirements (costs and time)

OBJECTIVES
The main objective of the second reporting period is the prototyping and demonstration of added-valued technologies for spaceport services with a focus on the interoperability and interfaces between them, as the best path to commercialisation, providing with flexible, scalable and low-cost services thanks to standardisation. The mock-up is demonstrated on Use Cases, which are defined to test the demonstrator under added-value scenarios for the Spaceport operations in terms of campaign time, costs and flexibility objectives.
From strategic point of view, the objectives are:
- initially target the SPO (Spaceport Operators). Along the project, the NewSpace context changed, where LSPs (Launch Service Providers) are becoming responsible for some ground services that the SPO want/need to centrifugate from their perimeter for the sake of business competitiveness. As a result, the services designed and demonstrated in SAMMBA are being also itched to either SPO or LSP depending on their business model, hence expanding the market
- the consortium moved from looking for investors towards pitching the SPO/LSP directly with no further investment. The services demanded by the SPO/LSP are under specific requirements and once the technologies demonstrated, the next step is to signed operational contracts with clients
- explore standardisation, as a driver for guaranteeing interoperability, modularity and scalability of the multidisciplinary services. The consortium explored the 3GPP standard to submit the SAMMBA label

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 second reporting period (M18-M36 from July 2021 to December 2022) is focused on taking the inputs from the WP4 devoted to technology survey and developing the demonstrators in the frame of WP5, orbiting the rest of the WPs around the progress of the demonstrators. To that aim, from M18 to M36, the activities follow the logic :
* WP4 : Technology survey for launch range and launch complex
That task extended 4 months into the WP5 provided as output a set of technologies identified to require demonstration in the frame of WP5 following technological (lack of maturity) and market criteria (best added-value for SPO/LSP)
After WP4 activities, the WP provides as outcome the technological building blocks defined by their attributes of cost, risks, TRL, responsiveness, genericity and performance. These attributes contribute to assess the deployment roadmap of these services once demonstrated their added-value to operations and performances.
* WP5 Mock-up implementation of a subset of above-mentioned technologies that contribute to test the interoperability between those technological building blocks with the objective of demonstrating their standardisation, modularity and scalability.
The activities on WP4 outcome the set of technologies which are identified to require prototyping to demonstrate the added-value for the spaceports under key performance indicators (KPI) such us maturity, standardisation and performance. The Activities in the WP5 are devoted to the development of these demonstrations and the definition of Use Cases making those demonstrators operate together as if it was a ‘partial’ spaceport, demonstrating their interoperability and standardisation.
- WP2: provided support during the demonstration phase for design, development and integration of the multidisciplinary technologies
- WP3: the commercialisation activities are focused on pitching the demonstrated services of WP5, looking forward to exploiting the outcomes of SAMMBA from a standardisation point of view. With that aim, a 3GPP standard is prepared to be submitted by the consortium
- WP6: the developments and demonstrators in PR2 provided the material for the dissemination and communication, leading to several conferences and presentations and the User Manual in the website presenting the technologies and demonstrators on top of Spaceports infrastructures. A special mention to the GBSF conference (Marseille, December 2022), where all major actors of the European ground systems gathered for 3 days. The fact that the conference converged at the end of the project M36 offered a unique opportunity to present SAMMBA results and physical mock-up demonstrators in 2 booths along with 8 papers. Spaceport1 (Scotland), Esrange (Sweden), Andøya Spaceport (Norway), Hyimpulse (Germany), CSG (France) and PLD (Spain) are among the actors, LSP and SPO, that showed interest in SAMMBA results.

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)

The demonstrators of WP5 generated studies, demonstrations and mock-ups that bring some technologies beyond state-of-the-art in the space scenario:

*Mechanical systems*
The initial results of testing and further analysis allow us to conclude that the designed demonstrator for an Erection-Retraction System provides a modular, flexible, low-cost and reliable system to fulfil ground operations in a multi-launcher context, meaning a mechanical service which is able to adapt to several launchers with a single equipment. It is shown that the demonstrator fulfils all the basic needs for a mini-launcher setup. Therefore, the next steps will be to further enhance the system by integrating an electrical power unit (as an alternative actuation system), integrating fill and drain lines and integrating sensorics for an autonomous erection. In addition, the scalability of the system shall be checked after the current tests are concluded.

*Fluid systems*
Three innovation activities are undertaken: first on the study of new low-cost and reliable sensors for the fluid systems status assessment in critical scenarios. Second, the study of remote operations using drones for the monitoring of fluid systems via imagery in hazardous environments. Thirdly, the deployment of IoT (internet of the things) sensor networks on vast areas, being able to remotely monitor the fluidic infrastructure via a single IoT data collection point and a communication based on IoT message broker.

*IT systems*
The IT systems pushed beyond current state-of-the-art a set of applications that contribute to the agility of ground operations. The project succeeded in testing a private Blockchain network as database for the traceability of operations in a multi-actor context. The IT systems propose a scheduler able to optimise the use of resources in a multi-launcher context. Those applications, and other necessary, are implemented in a Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) strategy, showing how multiple IT architectures can be managed and deployed remotely, improving the ground operations and maintenance in a multi-launcher environment.
The Monitoring and control system succeeded in interfacing the mechanical operations of the AGV/erector and the IoT fluidic network: As a result, it is demonstrated that the launchpad operations can be remotely managed by a command&control service, using COTS and standard interfaces.

SAMMBA logo

Demonstrators_AGV Augmented reality

Demonstrators_IT Launch reange/complex IaaS

SAMMBA context and objectives rationale

Demonstrators_Meca Erector