OBJECTIVE 1: ELABORATE AND DEFINE THE DEMONSTRATION MISSION THAT WILL FIT THE GENERAL MARKET NEEDS
EROSS+ project is an enabler for the future On-Orbit Servicing (OOS) and In-Orbit Assembly (IOA) missions. Therefore, its goal is to elaborate the in-orbit demonstration mission according to the general market needs to satisfy both short term and mid to long term markets. The purpose of EROSS+ is to design first a servicer which is the core vehicle that will perform all the operations. This spacecraft must be as versatile as possible to enable a wide range of missions, including on-orbit servicing and assembly operations. Second, a client satellite will be designed for collaborative and prepared rendezvous with specific features to ease its capture and manipulation, for instance, being attitude-friendly during rendezvous. This satellite will also be designed to enable all potential servicing operations to be demonstrated.
OBJECTIVE 2: IDENTIFICATION & DEVELOPMENT PLAN OF THE KEY CRITICAL TECHNOLOGIES
Another EROSS+ objective is to prepare the critical technologies with a clear technological development plan to mature the most critical items up to TRL5 /6 for a demonstration mission in 2025. The project will rely on the development and integration performed in the scope of EROSS mainly, but also PULSAR and MOSAR projects, already strongly connected to the previous OGs, that will be continued in EROSS+, with:
- • Previous SRC OG Building Blocks: ESROCOS, ERGO, INFUSE, I3DS, SIROM, FACILITATORS
- • Flight-ready HW elements like ASSIST, Standard Interfaces, Robotic Arm, Capture and multi-purpose Grippers
- • GNC architecture and algorithms development and porting on representative avionics
OBJECTIVE 3: DEMONSTRATE THE FEASIBILITY AND THE ADAPTABILITY OF THE SYSTEM DESIGN FOR COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS
One of the project’s main goals is to have a mission and system design for an in-orbit demonstration. EROSS+ will take it one step further by having a versatile system design that will be able to undertake late additional demonstration needs (up to phase B2/C/D) and any commercial applications following the demonstration mission. Indeed, the system design will fit as many servicing missions as possible, whether for life extension, re-orbiting or de-orbiting, refuelling, payload exchange or assembly of elements to the client satellite. Having a versatile vehicle will enable to address a wide range of business cases.
OBJECTIVE 4: DISSEMINATE AND COMMUNICATE AT A BROADER LEVEL
EROSS+ project is at a crossroads between today’s mission and the future missions demanding for robotic systems. Beyond the community of pioneers of this change, this current paradigm shift in Europe must be globally explained and acknowledged. Hence, this specific goal to disseminate and communicate about the project at a broader level is
set as a critical objective. The objective is to have outreach to space actors, academics, and the general public to explain these future OOS and, most importantly, all potential commercial and institutional applications customers.
