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The objective of this study was to help define how to maintain and further develop European access to the surface of Mars, the major destination for European exploration, following the most recent approved and developed (or currently in development) missions (ExoMars 2016, ExoMars RSP).

The study takes place in the context of the space environment remediation. Tackling the issue of space debris is becoming more and more critical as it becomes more dangerous for existing and future space missions. Solutions must be found to ensure the security of space missions security and a clean space environment. Laser pressure solutions are considered promising as they only using momentum transfer to perform debris manoeuvres to avoid collisions. This means that no additional debris is generated using this technique.

During the CleanSat concurrent engineering phase, Airbus, OHB, and TAS-I have cooperated within a consortium and have shared evenly the management of the different suppliers. Moreover, according to their priorities, each LSI had the possibility to be involved in the technical discussions with ESA, the other LSIs and the different BB suppliers. The concurrent engineering phase started in September 2015 and ended in April 2017 with a final presentation at ESTEC.

In the future, satellites will have to demonstrate compliance with debris mitigation requirements, covering re-entry or parking graveyard orbits and passivation. Nevertheless, during the mission, a failure could occur without any possibility to manoeuvre the satellite and achieving its compliance to the Space Debris Mitigation requirements. Therefore to anticipate the need to use ADR for deorbiting (or reorbiting) the satellite, it is interesting to evaluate the implication of adapting the satellites and launcher upper stage to support a future ADR mission.