Agenda and invitation
Minutes
(Semi)relevant presentations:
- ESA GSTP 6.3 Norwegian mission final.pdf (about the GSTP IOD-mission)
- ESA Smallsat Tech & Missions Roadmap for Norwegian IOD Industry Day Aug 2017.pdf (about ESA general smallsat technologies. Nice overview of some components)
- Norwegian ESA IOD mission - Industry Day presentation NSC-v2.pdf (general info about NORSat, Norwegian missions and more. Final few slides are relevant for the IOD-mission.
- Norwegian Small Sat IOD mission Phase AB system study.pdf (project development, phases and timelines)
First: Why are they doing it? (I wish they had answered this before the meeting). NAMMO has another GSTP-contract with ESA, where the goal is to develop a micro thruster for middle-class small satellites (~50 kg). They were mentioning a few options; either using solid fuel thrusters (bring as many as you need) or H202 hybrid thruster. I guess the last one is most likely. The reasoning behind it is that by piggybacking, you seldom get the orbit you –really- want, so they want to equip satellites with a thruster so the orbit can be for example lowered (and maintained during operational lifetime), or risen and then also use the thruster for de-orbit. In order to sell this product, it must reach TRL9 (flight proven), so therefore NRS and ESA are trying to set up an own Norwegian mission that overlaps in time, building a satellite that can carry the NAMMO thruster.
There will be two phase A studies; one for a satellite with the thruster and one without. The prime contractor must be able to show high-quality staff, experienced system engineers, thermal engineers and so on. This was stressed by ESA reps. and received a murmur in the audience, since it is well known that Norway virtually do not really have a single space system engineer (but several for other highly advanced systems). The phase A must overlap in time with the NAMMO program; meaning finish after around 18 months from now.
There will be a call for the prime through ESA EMITS this fall. A solid business-case is expected.
Use of Norwegian industry shall be preferred as far as possible. Procurements from European companies is allowed when needed.
There will be an AO (announcement of opportunity) call at the same time/a bit later for payloads for this satellite. Also through EMITS. There shall be no technology development in this project, so payloads must be TRL 5. Target TRL is 8 (before flight).
The chosen platform (with or without thruster) and payloads will go to phase B, where it will be decided if the project continues or not. Base-line design of the system must be finished. New calls and contracts must be made for phases C, D, E.
The prime contract is “small” (500 k€ in total), and it is expected at least 20% in-kind from prime contractor. It is expected that a platform supplier is tightly involved in the project from an early phase. Seemed like the whole room thought about UTIAS, which in this contexts is an European actor, through their ESA membership.
Other notes on technical levels:
ESA has an component database that will be made accessible listing components fulfilling a TID (total ionizing dose) of 20 kRad. A short LEO mission is expected to receive less total dose than this. New components may be used but might have to be tested. Board-level (or component level) tests at ESA facilities are possible. The system/subsystems should at least have some sort of mitigation wrt. latch-ups; isolation at least.
In phases C/D, EM (engineering model) + PFM (proto-flight model) development is possible and will save time and money compared to EQM + FM. (see slides in pres 4).
Other ESA documentation
ESA Norwegian IOD mission - Industry Day participants.pdf
IOD_CubeSat_ECSS_Eng_Tailoring_Iss1_Rev3.pdf
IOD_CubeSat_PQA_Reqts_Iss1_Rev2.pdf
IOD_CubeSat_Margin_Policy_iss1_rev_0.pdf
IOD_CubeSat_Review_Objectives_iss1_rev1.pdf