CubeSat low-cost control system
ESA Ops-Sat (source)
Until now, space flight has been a privilege of the few. However, as space access becomes more affordable, it creates an increasing demand which already spawned the emergence of commercial business models in the space industry over the last few years. This entrepreneurial space movement – NewSpace – allows new aerospace companies to develop low‐cost access to space or spaceflight technologies and paving the future of space exploration.
For many in the space industry, the so-called “mega-constellations” of communications satellites are the next big thing. Such systems have the potential to provide services from tracking planes and ships to offering broadband internet access more effectively than existing satellite systems or terrestrial alternatives. They provide a feel-good story about connecting the world as well as the promise of lucrative revenue streams.
Such constellation of satellites, bring new challenges to efficiently and reliably operate in a monitoring and control environment. VisionSpace has been awarded a development contract from the European Space Agency to develop further the European Ground Systems Common Core platform towards NewSpace. Together with GomSpace and SPACEBEL, we aim to provide a one-stop solution for a Monitoring & Control System based on EGS-CC for CubeSats and SmallSats, used throughout all phases of Satellite Operations.
The proposed system takes advantage of three fundamental principles:
Offering CCSDS Mission Operations Services at the external interfaces as a way to further extend the system capabilities and integrate other services for Operations.
Streamline configuration and deployment process to automatically provide the essential services for monitoring and control of satellite systems;
Provide an as-a-Service solution decoupled from system and tailoring configuration management.
The main objective of this activity is to facilitate the adoption of existing EGS-CC based solutions by low budget missions. The required decrease in cost and effort will be achieved by using standards for information and configuration exchange supported by continuous integration and deployment in a cloud environment backed by an automated system.
Expected project’s impact:
Reduced time-to-operations;
Enhance innovation for NewSpace industry by delivering Operations-as-a-Service;
Strengthen the competitiveness of the SmallSat and CubeSat segment by further reducing the cost of operations;
Validate new operational concepts, as File-Based Operations, Mission Operations
Services – monitoring and control (M&C) and data distribution (MDPDS);
Reduce the effort and knowledge required to generate EGS-CC tailoring and configuration data.