Nebula Public Library

The knowledge bank of ESA’s R&D programmes

Format: 2023
Format: 2023
Format: 2023

217 results found
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The current state of the art for bi-propellant propulsion systems employed by telecom spacecraft is to have a gas regulated system to maintain the propellant feed pressure in the propellant tanks for the Apogee engine burn. For on-station the pressure in the propellant tank is allowed to decay over life (aka blowdown) and thus the thruster propellant inlet pressure (and hence thruster performance) decays over time. Recently a number of different pump concepts have been proposed to improve the performance of propulsion launcher systems.

United Kingdom

TDE

T519-501MP

THALES ALENIA SPACE UK LIMITED

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•Accuracy and

Belgium

GSTP

GT27-056SW

SPACEBEL SA.

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The concept of highly integrated, miniaturised chemical and biological analysis systems is of great potential interest for space exploration missions, be it for scientific investigations or for monitoring contamination and health parameters onboard a manned spacecraft.
 

Italy

TDE

T314-603MM

KAYSER ITALIA

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The lunar environment has a challenging dust environment. The dust is highly abrasive and therefore can cause considerable damage in short time. For astronauts, the dust effects range from highly irritating to toxic. Many sample processing and sample analysis systems need reliable seals; spaceflight hardware must work reliably in the presence of dust.
 

Romania

TDE

T314-602MM

MICROELECTRONICA S.A.

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TASTE is a toolchain developed by ESA to provide tools for Model Based Software Engineering (MBSE). It provides tools for defining system architecture (in AADL), data model (in ASN.1/ACN) and behavior (in SDL), as well as automatic code generation (to Ada and C), model simulation and validation. EDS (CCSDS 876.0) is a proposed standard for exchanging Electronic Data Sheets (EDS) between various entities involved in spacecraft development.

Poland

GSTP

GT17-198SW

N7 Space

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As required for the ATHENA mission, filters with high opacity for IR/Visible/UV light need to be developed to reduce the straylight in these spectra. At the same time, a high transmission in the x-ray band shall be maintained.The experience from recent developments in the semicon industry of producing suitable large size carbon nanotube-based foils, shall be utilized. These foils shall form the support membrane for the required x-ray filters.

Finland

TDE

T216-171FT

Ametek Finland Oy

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Surface functionalisation (SF) by e.g. laser texturing, roughness modification, surface energy modification has been reported in the literature to be able to reduce coefficient of friction of steel contacts and reduce their wear by several orders of magnitude. Several universities and institutes in Europe have been developing methods of SF for application in tribology.
 

United Kingdom

TDE

T715-604MS

ESR TECHNOLOGY LTD

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Denmark

GSTP

GT27-047SA

TERMA A/S

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This activity shall develop a Payload Interface Data Handling Unit (PIDHU) for SWE hosted payloads which shall provide power supplies at various voltages required by space weather/environment instruments limiting the mass required for individual instrument voltage transformers. The PIDHU shall receive data streams from instruments through various protocols including UART (RS-422/485), SpaceWire, MIL-STD-1553 and CAN Bus and provide data though a single data interface adaptable to hosting spacecraft requirements.

Finland

GSTP

GT18-001ED

RUAG SPACE FINLAND OY AB

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Design for Demise is being applied in order to reduce the on-ground casualty risk. However, several parts of the spacecraft, due to performance requirements or long development cycles (e.g. Optical instruments, large mechanisms, etc.), may not be able to significantly change materials or design. During re-entry, each of these elements may generate several debris surviving re-entry increasing significantly the on-ground casualty risk.
 

France

TDE

T711-604SY

THALES ALENIA SPACE FRANCE

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