This is the second of two companion papers that describe the development of the RemoveDEBRIS space mission. This second article describes the in-orbit operations that were performed to demonstrate ...technologies to be used for the active removal of space debris, whereas the first paper described the development of the satellite's hardware.
The RemoveDebris mission has been the world's first Active Debris Removal (ADR) mission to successfully demonstrate, in orbit, some cost effective technologies, including net and harpoon capture; and elements of the whole sequence of operations, like the vision-based navigation.
The satellite was launched the 2nd of April 2018, to the International Space Station (ISS) and from there, on the 20th of June 2018, was deployed via the NanoRacks Kaber system into an orbit of 405 km altitude.
During the mission, two 2U CubeSats have been released by the mothercraft platform as artificial debris targets, to demonstrate net capture and cameras to be used for vision based navigation. Harpoon capture has been demonstrated by deploying a target and then firing at it a harpoon tethered to the platform. The various phases of the missions have been monitored using relevant telemetry and video cameras, and this paper reports the results of the various demonstrations.
•Describes a series of in-orbit demonstrations for the active removal of space debris.•Net and Harpoon debris capture systems performance are analysed.•Demonstration of Li-DAR camera for Vision Based Navigation System.•Demonstration of dragsail and discussion of anomalies and lesson learned.
Active control techniques are often required to mitigate the micro-vibration environment existing on board spacecraft. However, reliability issues and high power consumption are major drawbacks of ...active isolation systems that have limited their use for space applications. In the present study, an electromagnetic shunt damper (EMSD) connected to a negative-resistance circuit is designed, modelled and analysed. The negative resistance produces an overall reduction of the circuit resistance that results in an increase of the induced current in the closed circuit and thus the damping performance. This damper can be classified as a semi-active damper since the shunt does not require any control algorithm to operate. Additionally, the proposed EMSD is characterised by low required power, simplified electronics and small device mass, allowing it to be comfortably integrated on a satellite. This work demonstrates, both analytically and experimentally, that this technology is capable of effectively isolating typical satellite micro-vibration sources over the whole temperature range of interest.
Tip force during blossoming of coiled deployable booms Hoskin, Adam; Viquerat, Andrew; Aglietti, Guglielmo S.
International journal of solids and structures,
July 2017, 2017-07-00, 20170701, Volume:
118-119
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Deployable booms are an essential part of the deployable structures family used in space. They can be stowed in a coiled form and extended into a rod like structure in an action similar to that of a ...carpenter’s tape measure. “Blossoming” is a failure mode that some boom deployers experience where the booms uncoil within the deployer instead of extending. This paper develops a method to predict the force that a boom can exert before blossoming occurs by using the strain energy stored in the coiled boom and in the compression springs. An experimental apparatus is used to gain practical results to compare to the theory.
Since the beginning of the space era, a significant amount of debris has progressively been generated. Most of the objects launched into space are still orbiting the Earth and today these objects ...represent a threat as the presence of space debris incurs risk of collision and damage to operational satellites. A credible solution has emerged over the recent years: actively removing debris objects by capturing them and disposing of them.
This paper provides an update to the mission baseline and concept of operations of the EC FP7 RemoveDEBRIS mission drawing on the expertise of some of Europe's most prominent space institutions in order to demonstrate key active debris remove (ADR) technologies in a low-cost ambitious manner. The mission will consist of a microsatellite platform (chaser) that ejects 2 CubeSats (targets). These targets will assist with a range of strategically important ADR technology demonstrations including net capture, harpoon capture and vision-based navigation using a standard camera and LiDAR. The chaser will also host a drag sail for orbital lifetime reduction.
The mission baseline has been revised to take into account feedback from international and national space policy providers in terms of risk and compliance and a suitable launch option is selected. A launch in 2017 is targeted. The RemoveDEBRIS mission aims to be one of the world's first in-orbit demonstrations of key technologies for active debris removal and is a vital prerequisite to achieving the ultimate goal of a cleaner Earth orbital environment.
•RemoveDEBRIS is a low cost active debris removal (ADR) demonstration mission.•Mission consists of a microsatellite platform that ejects two “target” CubeSats.•Demonstrates the use of net and harpoon as debris capture technologies in space.•Additional demonstrations include vision-based navigation and a dragsail.•Paper provides an overview of the high-level mission, platform and payload design.
This is the first of two companion papers that describe the development of the RemoveDEBRIS; mission. This first article focusses on the mission design and hardware development up to the delivery of ...the spacecraft to the launch authority. The Second article describes the in-orbit operations.
The European Commission funded RemoveDebris mission has been the world's first Active Debris Removal (ADR) missions to demonstrate, in orbit, some cost effective key technologies, including net and harpoon capture; and elements of the whole sequence of operations, like the vision-based navigation, ultimately planning to terminate the mission with the deployment of the dragsail to de-orbit the craft. The mission has utilised two 2U CubeSats as artificial debris targets released from the main 100 kg satellite, to demonstrate the various technologies.
This paper examines the design of the mission from initial concepts through to Manufacture, Assembly Integration and Testing of the payloads, up to launch, and apart from a general consideration of the mission, will focus on the elements of design and testing that differ from a conventional mission.
•Development of the first ever mission to demonstrate active removal of space debris.•Development and ground testing of a Net capture system.•Development and ground testing of a Harpoon capture system.•Development and ground testing of a Vision Based Navigation System.•Development and ground testing of a Dragsail.
The Craig-Bampton method in micro-vibration analysis is a widely applied tool to reduce computational effort when dealing with complex assemblies. However, structural uncertainties tend to arise and ...undermine the reliability of deterministic tools such as finite element method. Hence, the aim of this paper is to investigate a stochastic version of the classic Craig-Bampton approach by estimating perturbation parameters directly linked to structural uncertainties. It is shown that the proposed approach can be ultimately configured as an optimisation black box tool to update the finite element model by improving the model correlation with test data. In addition it provides useful insight on the distribution of perturbation parameters to account for structural uncertainties in the analysis. Applications to real satellite platforms are shown to validate the approach with different optimisation functions based on the modal dynamics requirements.
•A set of stochastic distributions for Craig-Bampton perturbation parameters is provided.•Eigenvalues and mass related terms are quantified.•Model correlation between test and numerical data is enhanced.•Easily applicable to several scenarios by tailoring the optimisation cost function.
Test planning and post-test correlation activity have been issues of growing importance in the last few decades and many methodologies have been developed to either quantify or improve the ...correlation between computational and experimental results. In this article the methodologies established so far are enhanced with the implementation of a recently developed procedure called Virtual Testing. In the context of fixed-base sinusoidal tests (commonly used in the space sector for correlation), there are several factors in the test campaign that affect the behaviour of the satellite and are not normally taken into account when performing analyses: different boundary conditions created by the shaker's own dynamics, non-perfect control system, signal delays etc. All these factors are the core of the Virtual Testing implementation, which will be thoroughly explained in this article and applied to the specific case of Bepi-Colombo spacecraft tested on the ESA QUAD Shaker. Correlation activity will be performed in the various stages of the process, showing important improvements observed after applying the final complete methodology.
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