On-orbit operations and services

Expected Impact:The outcome should contribute to:

• Pave the way to future European on-orbit operations and services able to deal also with security and defence satellites.
• Enhance the ability of the armed forces of the EU Member States and EDF Associated Countries to conduct operations and act in space, enabling responsive space capabilities.
• Optimising investment by leveraging synergies with past, ongoing and future EU civilian R&I in the field of in-space operations and services.

Objective:Given the evolving threat environment in Space, Defence users are likely to require tailored assets to conduct space-to-space operations in support of Space Domain Awareness, to protect and ensure the uninterrupted services of space systems used for defence applications, in particular to inspect, repair, update, maintain or deorbit military satellites. Although the European defence community recognises the strategic need for such capabilities in the medium term, no operational assets are currently available in the EU Member States’ and EDF Associated Countries’ armed forces to carry out such missions.

Building upon or integrating results from relevant civilian EU-funded actions, the EDF intends to remedy to this shortfall by addressing R&D actions paving the way to future capabilities for on-orbit operations and services for defence applications.

Specific objective

The specific objective of this call topic is to develop a ‘dual-use by-design’ demonstrator of the space systems, sub-systems and related key technologies, ready for IOD/IOV, needed to address the abovementioned defence needs. The demonstrator has to be designed to be potentially operated by defence users through their military C2 ground segments in order to enable or perform on-orbit operations and services on their own satellites.

This call topic therefore aims to focus on:

• the proposal of possible detailed CONOPS and related feasibility analysis for on-orbit operations and services as defined below in Scope and types and activities, considering also the ‘dual-use by design’ of the required capabilities and, where relevant, the High-Level Requirements included in the technical guidance document produced under Horizon Europe.
• a design that, taking into account relevant civilian developments as background information, can provide defence capability planners and national armament directorates with the in-orbit demonstration of potential solutions to be implemented to achieve the required capability.
• development of technological and capability demonstrators (TRL 6 - ready for IOD/IOV) of systems or sub-systems to be designed to perform on-orbit operations and services on current and planned satellites owned by EU Member States and EDF Associated Countries Ministries of Defence.

Scope:Proposals must address a detailed technical feasibility analysis pointing out the operational benefits of space missions designed to perform space-to-space operations for defence applications and aiming at producing the related technology roadmaps and TRL maturation for selected key critical technologies.

Proposals must develop a demonstrator of these technologies ready to be launched and compatible with the CONOPS and performances described below.

With the aim to take advantage of technologies developed within other relevant EU-funded programmes, the proposals must substantiate synergies avoiding unnecessary duplication with civil space (see below) and highlight the potential cost benefits of those synergies, taking into account the performance and governance implications as well as potential improvements required by EU Member States’ and EDF Associated Countries’ Ministries of Defence.

The defence needs and associated CONOPS to be considered include:

• the space-based ability to support space operation centres in their identification and attribution of designated in-orbit unfriendly behaviours from cooperative and non-cooperative space objects, in all relevant orbits.
• Rendez-vous Proximity Operations (RPO), docking and berthing: the ability to perform autonomous close-proximity operations, rendez-vous and capturing of cooperative and non-cooperative, prepared and non-prepared, Resident Space Objects (RSO) for de-orbiting (e.g., emergency debris removal) or servicing (e.g., life extension) enabling military space logistics (e.g., assembly, maintenance and repairing) and responsive space capabilities.
• the ability of the servicer to perform multi-purpose and multi-functional operations thanks to at least one advanced robotic arm and manipulator, including a tool exchanger device.

Types of activities

The following types of activities are eligible for this topic:

Types of activities

(art 10(3) EDF Regulation)

Eligible?

(a)

Activities that aim to create, underpin and improve knowledge, products and technologies, including disruptive technologies, which can achieve significant effects in the area of defence (generating knowledge)

No

(b)

Activities that aim to increase interoperability and resilience, including secured production and exchange of data, to master critical defence technologies, to strengthen the security of supply or to enable the effective exploitation of results for defence products and technologies (integrating knowledge)

Yes(optional)

(c)

Studies, such as feasibility studies to explore the feasibility of new or upgraded products, technologies, processes, services and solutions

Yes(mandatory)

(d)

Design of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology as well as the definition of the technical specifications on which such design has been developed, including partial tests for risk reduction in an industrial or representative environment

Yes(mandatory)

(e)

System prototyping of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology

Yes(optional)

(f)

Testing of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology

Yes(optional)

(g)

Qualification of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology

Yes(optional)

(h)

Certification of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology

Yes(optional)

(i)

Development of technologies or assets increasing efficiency across the life cycle of defence products and technologies

Yes(optional)

Accordingly, the proposals must cover at least the following tasks as part of the mandatory activities:

• Studies: • CONOPS and detailed technical feasibility analysis for on-orbit operations and services addressing the defence needs mentioned above with a ‘dual-use by-design’ end-to-end approach.
• Analysis of potential synergies with past and on-going activities in the civil sector, at technology and capability level. Technologies specific to defence missions (including in terms of performances), if any, must be identified either as a gap filler of civilian developments or as an additional development required to accommodate military needs, maximising the time-to-readiness of the technologies.

• Design: • System(s) and subsystem(s) mission design, focusing on at least one type of orbit (LEO, MEO, GEO).
• Payloads/sensors/technologies and interfaces (between the servicer and the receiver) design, focusing on at least one type of orbit (LEO, MEO, GEO).
• Ground systems design for Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing and autonomous or teleoperated operations, including solutions for military C2 systems.
• Definition of technology roadmaps and TRL maturation of selected top-priority key-technologies for specific defence purposes, focusing on at least one type of orbit (LEO, MEO, GEO).
• Development of technological demonstrators ready for IOD/IOV to demonstrate and validate advanced mission scenarios and capturing manoeuvres considering the complexity related to unprepared and non-cooperative RSOs, the need to operate on military satellites and to perform multi-functional systems, including specific and dedicated RPO sensors, robotic arms and manipulators system(s).

In addition, the proposals may also cover the following tasks:

• Studies and Design: • Development of a demonstrator of Space Defence Operations lab allowing to simulate the end-to-end system architecture for all defence missions, considering all types of orbits (LEO, MEO, GEO), and to illustrate the associated CONOPS. This lab should support the studies activities mentioned in the previous paragraph.

The proposals must explore and substantiate potential synergies with the on-going call topics on In-Space Operations and Services (ISOS) within the Horizon Europe Cluster 4 (HORIZON-CL4-SPACE-2025-01-21 to 25) and any other EU-funded technology that target a comprehensive dual-use by design space infrastructure supporting ISOS and composed of servicing, host, logistics and satAPPS components. In addition, given the spin-in nature of the call, the proposals must build upon or integrate results from relevant civilian EU-funded actions.

Functional requirements

The capability to be developed should meet the following functional requirements:

• The capability should be able to perform several in-orbit operations and services on military-class satellites.
• The capability should be able to perform RPOs and at least two of the following operations and services: assembly, repairing, integration and refuelling operations onto a prepared/unprepared and non-cooperative/cooperative target.
• The robotic system should have the capability to handle, eventually with more than one robotic arm, an inertia of an object whose mass is at least 1500 kg.
• The robotic system should have at least one robotic arm with 7 degrees of freedom and an end-effector able to interact with several geometric profiles, including those applicable to large-dimensions spacecraft structures.
• Include a tool exchanger device able to perform the different operations and services over the mission profile.
• At least some of the force-torque sensors should allow fine and precise contact control.
• The robotic system should be able to manage contact operations with the target with impedance control, establishing rigid contact with the target on military satellites.
• The system should have a robotic re-fuelling interface for enabling the flow motion in life-extension applications on military satellites.
• The system should have a muti-spectral system integrated for far-range and proximity operations management and target features recognition.
• The system should have electronic subsystems suitable for GEO/MEO/LEO missions with internal routed harness.
• The system should be cyber-resilient.
• The system design should ensure the complete reliability of orbital operations during the execution of the tasks assigned.
• The system should include key management and security accreditation, to guarantee protection of mission-sensitive data and processes, from all kinds of illicit, unauthorised and adversary access: this should include advanced real time operating systems for security-critical space missions.
• The system should include communication and transmission security, to guarantee protection of mission-critical space-to-space and space-to-ground data exchanges, against all kinds of intentional spoofing, corruption and eavesdropping.
• Technologies and techniques to detect, resolve and respond to RF threats, sourced from ground and/or co-orbital, including advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) for threat intelligence.
• The system should comply with space security requirements, regulations and certifications.
• The rendez-vous system should be flexible and adaptable to cope with RSO rotations or manoeuvres, also considering that the estimation of the state vector could not be accurate.
• The far-range inspection (including GNC/pointing accuracy) should rely on complementary high-resolution sensors (e.g., lidar and optical/infrared cameras) to enable the servicer capacity for inspection and approaching operations of non-cooperative and unknown space objects in a wide range of situations.
• The on-board processing computation power should be optimised not only for the RSO inspection, but also for proximity operations and rendez-vous path. The response should be quick and able to deal with mission contingencies (e.g., ability to perform escape or evasion manoeuvres).
• The servicer should be able to operate and manoeuvre autonomously without receiving feedback from C2 mission ground station during proximity operations.
• The capacity should offer stable capturing systems and AOCS/propulsion take-over subsystem to enable future life-extensions and relocation applications specific for GEO/MEO/LEO defence/military applications.
• The capability to autonomously rendez-vous and capture non-cooperative space objects should allow to retrieve and service a variety of target RSOs.
• The use of AI algorithms to perform autonomous missions, responsiveness and capability to monitor and identify alerts by means of imagery processing in different bands should be assessed and validated.
• The use of improved accuracy navigation filters for updating the status vector should be considered in order to implement adaptive guidance for flight conditions.
• The advanced detection systems (sensors + software) should be able to detect and track approaching space objects to increase the capability of protections of the space assets.