Preliminary design of an on-orbit servicing station for satellite manufacturing, refurbishing and recycling

Through its CleanSpace initiative, ESA has been devoting an increasing amount of attention to the environmental impact of its activities, including its own operations as well as operations performed by European industry in the frame of ESA programmes. In its Technology Strategy, ESA identified 'Inverting Europe’s contribution to space debris by 2030' as one of the four technology development targets.With this aim, ESA has set up the OMAR (On-orbit Manufacture, Assembly & Recycle) initiative. OMAR is a system approach aiming to give an overview of the most interesting applications, map the state-of-the-art and derive a roadmap for the development of critical technologies. This study is part of the OMAR initiative; the starting point was a state-of-the-art look at missions and projects under development or foreseen for on-orbit servicing. A look-out of technology aspects related to on-orbit servicing was also presented with a strong focus on robotics.