Nebula Public Library

Beginning in June 2012, an MSSL-led team have performed a study of the requirements and design of a Lunar Surface Camera Package for Exploration L- CAM for the ESA Lunar Lander. However, the Lunar Lander program was terminated by the ESA Ministerial Council in November 2012. As a result, with four of the six TNs requested in the SoW completed, ESA instructed MSSL to concentrate work on the L-CAM thermal model. The following final report is therefore composed of TNs 1- 4 and the Thermal Report.

A considerable amount of supporting research and technology development has to take place on the Earth to allow humans to explore the Moon, Mars and beyond. The Concepts for Activities in the Field for Exploration (CAFE) project aims to support such aims in an international context by preparing a complete catalogue of terrestrial analogue environments that are appropriate for testing human space exploration-related scientific field activities.

In traditional data processing and control architectures for space systems, one or a few centralised computing nodes are used.
All sensors, actuators, and other data sources and data sinks are connected to these nodes in a star– or multi-star topology. Actuators and associated sensors (e.g. heaters and associated temperature sensors) are usually kept separate, with individual harnesses connecting them to the central nodes.