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The main aim of OPTIMAL was to perform a feasibility study on a potential mission or system to detect marine plastic litter through satellite remote sensing. To do so, the project activities involved the following aspects:

The Arctic Mission System Study involved two parallel studies conducted by consortia led by OHB Sweden and Thales Alenia Space. The scope of the studies were to identify needs in the Arctic region that could be met with mission architecture containing space elements, to propose such mission architectures, to define the elements of one of the architectures in some detail and to propose a plan to implement it.

The objective of the Aeolus/EarthCARE Aerosol Assimilation Studies (A3S) project was to allow assimilation of the Aeolus L2A lidar backscatter data, also paving the way for the assimilation of EarthCARE products. Since the Aeolus and EarthCARE missions were not yet launched at the time of the study, demonstration datasets based on model data (MOCAGE model for the aerosols and the IFS for the clouds) and a one-day dataset based on CALIPSO data (reprocessed at the UV wavelength and with the Aeolus orbit data) was created.

The first steps have been taken to establish a non-explosive, harmless Indium-based 100W electric propulsion system for small and medium satellites. The activity successfully developed a breadboard that included all necessary functions for controlling a micro thruster, including temperature sensing and control, generation of the high voltage supplies for the ion emitter and extractor as well as heating and bias voltage supply for the charge balancing.