Nebula Public Library

Space debris is mainly constituted by small items which cannot be de-orbited by using specific satellites launched from the Earth due to costs and difficulty in miniaturizing robotic arms or other rigid actuation systems. In a long-period vision, small cleaning satellites, with a size comparable with the debris to remove, can be manufactured in Space. Traditional robotic systems would be extremely expensive and some also would have problems in grabbing objects with undefined shape.

Space missions benefit greatly by the capability of the on-board GNC system to adapt rapidly to unknown environment. Autonomous vision-based navigation is a particular technology under implementation in several ESA missions. One of the most interesting applications in that field is the proximity operations around a small asteroid, like those in HERA.
The goal of this activity was to develop a navigation algorithm with the capability to fly over an unknown terrain and achieve better navigation performances than current vision-based techniques based on unknown feature tracking.

“Remote Sensing for Marine Litter - RESMALI” has identified the ideal parameters to study marine litter (ML) from space, including spectral bands with affordable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at top-of-atmosphere (TOA) level, in a range of wavelengths from visible to SWIR. To continue this path towards a dedicated mission, performance assessment against simulated real-case scenarios of ML is key. We want to build a simulator to estimate ML signal at TOA from a set of scenarios representing the various applications already targeted by the community (e.g.

Electrical, Electronic and Electro-mechanical (EEE) components play an essential role in the functional performance, quality, life cycle and costs of space systems. EEE components are fundamental building blocks of any spacecraft and major drivers in determining their performances. Guaranteeing access to EEE components able to provide the necessary performances to comply with the requirements of future satellite missions is of paramount importance to maintain a successful and autonomous satellite manufacturing capabilities.