The design process of a typical attitude and orbit control system (AOCS) involves the significant effort of tuning and validation of static controllers or state estimators, calibrated for each mission phase/mode. The transition between these controllers/observers may occur without performance guarantee, as well as provoking settling impacts. The tuning effort and Verification and Validation (VV) process can be improved by Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) techniques.

Using an optimized control will enable not to oversize the CMGs and so to reduce the mission cost, but also the volume and mass, while benefiting of an enhanced agility.

AOCS mode switching is implemented on many spacecraft to perform progressive transition from coarse pointing to fine pointing, or to perform slews, using different combinations of sensors, actuators and control algorithms. This standard architecture is at a cost of a certain complexity, with consequences on development and validation cost.The proposed activity consists in hybridizing different sensors to get a virtual unified sensor. Similarly, the actuators would be merged and controlled through a virtual actuator distributing the command to each of the physical actuators.).

Achievements and status: 

The Unified Space Link Protocol (USLP) is currently a Draft CCSDS Recommended Standard at the Data Link Layer to be used over all space communications links: space-to-ground, ground-to-space, and space-to-space. The Space Communication environment has changed over the past few years putting increased pressure on current legacy HW implementations (ESA long standing robust IP cores and ASICs) and operational data handling and routing.

With the current best knowledge, equipment such as Star-Trackers, RIUs, PCDUs, Batteries are elements of great uncertainty and for which the demise models need to be matured and validated. In some of these cases this may be related to lack of knowledge and validated models by test leading to conservative assumptions on materials used, modelling approach and break-up process these are units that may not demise in system level simulations (unlike what was indicated in previous studies).

The constantly raising worldwide interest in the execution of rendezvous, proximity and capture operations for on-orbit services such as repair, refuelling, and tugging has highlighted the lack of clear and widely accepted technical requirements and their associated verification and validation methods for ensuring that rendezvous and proximity operations are conducted in a safe manner.Previous activities (e.g.