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Smallsat DTN is an OPS-SAT experiment awarded funding trough ESA’s OSIP, OPS-SAT campaign. The aim of the project is to investigate the benefits of CFDP and Bundle Protocol for satellite operations and their possible applications in the optical communications links, of the future ESA mission of OPS-SAT 2. The Flight Campaign of the project completed in a three-day span, successfully demonstrating the implementation of a LEO DTN network, spacecraft remote control and configuration over Bundle Protocol and CFDP imagery data distribution over multiple passes from the ground segment.

Previous ESA Studies, such as the LUNA study 'Artificial Analogue Concepts for Preparing Robotics and Human Exploration on the Moon' identified gaps in European infrastructures to simulate surface operations with lunar soil (simulant) in a vacuum. There exist several vacuum chambers or terrain models such as the coming EAC LUNA facility which can be used for testing equipment either in a vacuum or on a simulated lunar terrain, but not both.

The project aimed to design an optical instrument based on Compressive Sensing (CS) for a space applications. Conventional sampling or compression methodologies follow the Shannon-Nyquist theorem, which states that if a signal frequency band or spectrum is limited to a frequency B [Hz], the signal is completely determined by a sample-rate larger than 2xB samples per second. Compressive Sensing (CS) provides a fundamentally new approach to data acquisition or signal sampling.

Global plans for exploratory missions aim at extending the distances travelled by humans well beyond low Earth orbit and establishing permanent bases on the surface of Moon and Mars [1]. This will inevitably lead to increasing mission duration, radiation intensity, gravity levels and degree of confinement and isolation to which the crews will be exposed. In this extended space mission context, the astronauts should have the means to collect medical/physiological data in order to understand if their physiological conditions are in nominal levels.