Space Technology

CAREER

Project Facts

Project NameCAREER – CubeSat Robotic Environment for Educational Research
Project Duration01.10.2022 - 31.12.2024

Project Description

The increasing number of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) raises the amount of debris circling Earth. Not only retired satellites, but also fragmentations (through collisions and explosions) are a threat to operating spacecrafts. Besides a mission design according to the European Code of Conduct, Active Debris Removal (ADR) and On-Orbit Servicing (OOS) are essential to secure current and future missions by mitigating debris. The most challenging part in eliminating or maintaining satellites are the Rendezvous and Docking (RVD) maneuvers. In the case of ADR the tumbling target is non-cooperative, consequently its motion needs to be exclusively captured and propagated by the chaser. OOS requires high precision for the cooperative docking, in which the spacecrafts capture and communicate each other’s motion. There were already developed multiple concepts for either, cooperative and non-cooperative scenarios, but none of them investigated the implementation into a small satellite system. The reason for it is that only few sensor-actuator combinations researched have shown promising results for small satellites.

The goal of CAREER is consequently to set up and operate a robotic test environment for hands-on research of RVD maneuvers. The testbed consists mainly of two robotic arms, which will simulate the relative motion of two satellites. The propulsion for the orbit and attitude control is being developed at the Space Technology Chair of the TU Berlin, its identified characteristic will be implemented into the dynamic of the robotic arms. This will help verify realistic control algorithms. The docking mechanisms and sensors get mounted at the end of the robotic arms and researched based on proven satellite platforms of the Space Technology Chair. The unique features of the testbed are the GNSS-simulator, the passive Gecko and the active iSSI docking interface. For operation multiple RVD scenarios are developed and implemented in the environment.

Team Member

At the TU Berlin, the following members of the team are employed on the project:

Funding & Acknowledge

CAREER is supported by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) - Space Management Division with funds from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

Contact

Balthasar Johannes Jäger

b.jaeger@tu-berlin.de

Organization name Space Technology

Publications