Design methodologies for space systems in a System of Systems (SoS) architecture

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Hypothesis for Hypersonic Flight development

The aim of this work is to promote the hypersonic flight in order to improve both the affordability of the access to space and the terrestrial flight transportation increasing flight range and reducing flight time. A strategic air vehicle is envisaged partially employing state-of-the-art technologies focusing on configuration and feasibility studies. The purpose is obviously to indicate the technologies on which concentrating the design efforts. To enable the development of future spacecraft, it is believed that the effort have to focused on the development, at low cost, of new technology demonstrator aircraft based on suborbital “tourism spacecraft” and fighter aircraft. An important goal would be the development of small and affordable aircraft able to perform the hypersonic cruise

Effective methodologies to derive strategic decisions from ESA technology roadmaps

Top priorities in future international space exploration missions regard the achievement of the necessary matura-tion of enabling technologies, thereby allowing Europe to play a role commensurate with its industrial, operational and scientific capabilities. As part of the actions derived from this commitment, ESA Technology Roadmaps for Exploration represent a powerful tool to prioritise R&D activities in technologies for space exploration and support the preparation of a consistent procurement plan for space exploration technologies in Europe. The roadmaps illus-trate not only the technology procurement (to TRL-8) paths for specific missions envisaged in the present timeframe, but also the achievement for Europe of technological milestones enabling operational capabilities and building blocks, essential for current and future Exploration missions. Coordination of requirements and funding sources among all European stakeholders (ESA, EU, National, Industry) is one of the objectives of these roadmaps, that show also possible application of the technologies beyond space exploration, both at ESA and outside. The present paper describes the activity that supports the work on-going at ESA on the elaboration and update of these roadmaps and related tools, in order to criticise the followed approach and to suggest methodologies of assessment of the Roadmaps, and to derive strategic decision for the advancement of Space Exploration in Europe. After a review of Technology Areas, Missions/Programmes and related building blocks (architectures) and operational capabilities, technology applicability analyses are presented. The aim is to identify if a specific technology is required, applicable or potentially a demonstrator in the building blocks of the proposed mission concepts. In this way, for each technology it is possible to outline one or more specific plans to increase TRL up to the required level. In practice, this translates into two possible solutions: on the one hand, approved mission concepts will be complemented with the required technologies if the latter can be considered as applicable or demo; on the other, if they are neither applicable nor demo, new missions, i.e. technology demonstrators based on multidisciplinary grouping of key technologies, shall be evaluated, so as to proceed through incremental steps. Finally, techniques to determine priorities in technology procurement are identified, and methodologies to rank the required technologies are proposed. In addition, a tool that estimates the percentage of technologies required for the final destination that are implementable in each intermediate destination of the incremental approach is presented

Autonomous take-off and landing for unmanned aircraft system: Risk and safety analysis

The aim of this paper is to conceive the possibility of applying the Required Navigation Performance (RNP) requirements where Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) augmentations are considered for the Automatic Take-Off and Landing (ATOL). An aircraft, belonging to the Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) category of Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) has been considered as case-study. Once the avionic architecture has been designed, the Safety and risk analysis was carried out with a particular focus on Functional Hazard Analysis and Fault Tree Analysis techniques. The proposed methodology allows the researchers to evaluate the reliability of each avionic equipment and the safety level of the whole avionic system. Furthermore, the results pointed out the main criticalities of the architecture and some future in-depth studies are proposed

Reusable space tug concept and mission

The paper deals with the conceptual design of a space tug to be used in support to Earth satellites transfer ma-noeuvres. Usually Earth satellites are released in a non-definitive low orbit, depending on the adopted launcher, and they need to be equipped with an adequate propulsion system able to perform the transfer to their final operational location. In order to reduce the mass at launch of the satellite system, an element pre-deployed on orbit, i.e. the space tug, can be exploited to perform the transfer manoeuvres; this allows simplifying the propulsion requirements for the satellite, with a consequent decrease of mass and volume, in favour of larger payloads. The space tug here presented is conceived to be used for the transfer of a few satellites from low to high orbits, and vice versa, if needed. To support these manoeuvres, dedicated refuelling operations are envisaged. The paper starts from on overview of the mission scenario, the concept of operations and the related architecture elements. Then it focuses on the detailed definition of the space tug, from the requirements' assessment up to the budgets' development, through an iterative and recursive design process. The overall mission scenario has been derived from a set of trade-off analyses that have been performed to choose the mission architecture and operations that better satisfy stakeholder expectations: the most important features of these analyses and their results are described within the paper. Eventually, in the last part of the work main conclusions are drawn on the selected mission scenario and space tug and further utilizations of this innovative system in the frame of future space exploration are discussed. Specifically, an enhanced version of the space tug that has been described in the paper could be used to support on orbit assembly of large spacecraft for distant and long exploration missions. The Space Tug development is an activity carried on in the frame of the SAPERE project (Space Advanced Project Excellence in Research and Enterprise), supported by Italian Ministry of Research and University (MIUR), and specifically in its STRONG sub-project (Systems Technology and Research National Global Operations) and related to the theme of space exploration and access to space

Harpacticoida (Crustacea: Copepoda) from the California continental shelf : final report

"The California Harpacticoida Study was a small multi-year, marine program that was conducted to provide the U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service with information necessary to assess the potential environmental impacts of leasing tracts of submarine lands for commercial oil production and to properly manage marine resources if recovery of petroleum occurs. The study resulted from data produced in the meiofauna studies of the California Monitoring Program (CAMP) from the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Harpacticoid copepods were found to be very numerous and important, but most were species new to science. The report consists of a series of detailed chapters describing the harpacticoids which were found in the CAMP project. The chapters are authored by two participating investigators, who are trained systematists. ... The objective of the Report is to provide a detailed description of the new harpacticoids found in the Santa Maria Basin. The Report summarizes systematic accounts that are or will be published in peer-reviewed journals. ... All specimens were derived from samples archived from the CAMP project. Harpacticoids were dissected, and drawings were made of each anatomical feature of the species that has taxonomic significance. Systematic accounts of the species were constructed based on a comparison of other species found in the taxonomic literature. ... Over 115 new species were found in the Santa Maria Basin during the CAMP program. Complete systematic accounts are given for 6 of the species, and drawings are provided for 9 others. A pictorial key is provided for the identification of the harpacticoids.Submitted by: Marine Science Institute, the University of Texas at Austin ... for: U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Pacific OCS RegionUnder purchase order no. 13244October 1995Specimens of new Harpacticoida species were obtained during the California Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), Phase II, Monitoring Program (CAMP) between November 1986 and May 1989. The CAMP project was a multidisciplinary study to detect and evaluate the long-term biological impacts of continental shelf oil drilling and production. The study was centered around a proposed platform site named Julius, which was never put into service. Samples were collected in the Santa Maria Basin on a regional scale (10- 20 km). Harpacticoids are the second most abundant meiofaunal taxa in the Santa Maria Basin. Harpacticoids have been intensively studied in the Atlantic OCS. However, Pacific studies are limited to collections made in shallow water. There are a great number of undescribed species in the CAMP samples taken from the Santa Maria Basin. The present study is rather limited in scope and only touches on some of the dominate species found. It contains full taxonomic descriptions of six species, a pictorial key of 18 dominant species, and drawings of 42 other unknown species.Marine Scienc

INVESTIGATIONS OF GROUND INFRASTRUCTURES FOR UAS FLIGHT MONITORING

This article deals with the investigation of on-ground infrastructures to be exploited to monitor Unmanned Aerial Systems during their operations. In particular, this work evaluates the usefulness of a radar technology to be installed in an airport facility. Simulation analyses have been carried out considering the installation of Primary Surveillance Radar, Secondary Surveillance Radar and ADS-B. Then, in order to ensure the economic viability of these infrastructures, the impact on civil aviation monitoring activities has been evaluated. Eventually, for the selected reference case, located in Northern part of Italy, the ADSB is proposed, taking also into account the results and the future trend already suggested by several other European Research projects focused on airspace integration