The production process of full-CFRP struts, was before only suitable for low volume production rates (~10 struts/month) and including worker safety critical processes. This approach had to be reviewed and changed to enable production rates >100/month and improve worker safety. The activity focused on the: 

Due to the ongoing miniaturisation and increased performance of electronics devices, alternative cooling methods are required, specifically mechanical pumping loops (MPL). Passive two-phase loops are not capable of cooling ESA's expected power densities up to 300 W/m², so pumped two-phase loops are forecasted to replace their passive counterparts. According to Lapensée et al., “the most important component of a MPL is the pump and a pump failure directly results in MPL system failure, a reliable pump is therefore of vital importance". Wits et al.

The objective of the project was to design, develop and test the compaction device breadboard in a regolith simulant testbed. An experimental test campaign aimed to verify that the compaction device can be successfully used to improve the surface geotechnical properties of two different regolith simulants: GreenSpar-250 analogous to lunar Highlands, and AGK-2010 analogous to lunar Mare regions.

The project demonstrates a proof-of-concept of a next generation bio-inspired morphing wing inspired by academic research of the Peregrine Falcon morphology. Asymmetric span morphing has previously been demonstrated for UAV roll control via in-plane partial span change. This design has full bird-like span change and a unique out-of-plane modality. This offers novel drag reduction characteristics when made to form an airflow channel in conjunction with a fixed surface such as the fuselage, in “cupped wing” flight.

Today, Ge is used as a growth template for III-V based solar cells and also serves as the lowest active junction. While the thickness of the Ge on solar cell level is around 140µm, actually only 10-20µm are really active. Therefore, in order to become thinner and lighter, solar cell manufacturers start to thin down the Ge wafers after cell processing by grinding, etching or lift-off processes (to reduce weight). However, this Ge waste is today not recovered since no economical process exists.

Science missions such as SPICA (with the Safari instrument) and ATHENA (with the X-IFU instrument) require a complex cryogenic chain to ensure thermal bath temperatures in the order of 50 mK at the level of their respective detectors. The last cooling stage in these complex chains includes an Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator (ADR) that takes advantage of the fact that the entropy of paramagnetic materials in a magnetic field is lower than when no field is present.

In order to enable lunar exploration in a sustainable manner, it is necessary to develop technologies that allow the use of lunar resources in-situ. Additive manufacturing techniques are being studied for in-situ resources utilization on the Moon (e.g.: solar or laser sintering). The results of these studies, presented samples with low mechanical properties due to the formation of defects and cracks within the final product.

During the project activities, the authors proposed a conceptual framework, which utilizes resources available in situ through the chemical and physical processes associated with agriculture; the soil and CO2 (if present) are transformed into fibrous plant matter, harvested and finally converted into mechanical and structural components.