Collision avoidance is part of routine operations today. Detailed re-entry predictions and assessment of on-ground risks are regularly performed for high interest objects such as payloads of ESA or its member states. Both activities rely on uncertainty information, which has to be propagated along the trajectory and mapped to quantities which are not state vectors, e.g. collision plane and on-ground location. Current approaches rely on either Monte Carlo methods (with few runs) or propagation of covariance assuming a simple model of the dynamics, in particular of the air drag perturbation.

The issue of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) generated by artificial sources is an increasing problem. Areas affected by the radio spectrum pollution include: Earth Observation using passive and active microwave remote sensing, ground based remote sensing of the atmosphere, space based radio experiments and radiostronomical observations.The current level of RFI contamination on ground based and spaceborne passive sensors is already an issue.

Space qualified Electrical, Electronic and Electromechanical (EEE) components are often considered as very expensive compared to automotive products that exhibit similar and sometimes better performances with a demonstrated quality and reliability. Therefore, the use of automotive EEE parts might be considered as a potential solution to decrease the cost of component of a spacecraft. However, the suitability for space application of the automotive products shall be demonstrated.

The aim of the LIFELINE project was to perform a feasibility study of a Relativistic Positioning System. Nowadays, all GNSS in operation are based on Newtonian physics and rely on global reference frames fixed to Earth. Relativistic effects are treated as deviations that need to be corrected. A practical RPS would consist, for example, in a constellation of satellites, each one broadcasting not only its General Relativity coordinates (proper times or other observables) at emission but also the coordinates that it receives from the other satellites.

The LOCATE project focued on the development of a predictive and monitoring tool to improve the regional management of floating litter in coastal areas. The tool has been built developing a marine litter dispersion numerical model coupled to hydrodynamic information, plastic data and evaluated with satellite derived information. The coupled model is envisaged to work in coastal regions and applied to the littoral region of the Barcelona city as a proof of concept with the aim to extend the concept to other regions.

Current on-board orbit determination concepts are in the most cases an integral part of the satellite avionics. However, it is believed that a capability of on-board precise orbit determination would allow to develop new areas of applications. E.g. autonomous station keeping (LEO, MEO and GEO), on-board SAR processing (LEO), missions with high resolution image processing (LEO) or missions related to atmospheric sounding.For this reason, this study shall investigate the conceptual approach for an on-board precise orbit determination system which is not a part of the on-board avionics.

Large apertures (antennas and telescopes) and long baselines and focal lengths in space have applications for telecommunications, Earth observation and scientific missions. Astrophysics missions need deployable structures mostly for the creation of long base lines of interferometers and large focal lengths, e.g. for X-ray telescopes. Missions currently in early phases may require for instance deployable booms of up to 100 m deployed length and positioning accuracy within a sphere of 1 mm radius or better and rotations lower than 0.005 degree.