SINPLEX

Small Integrated Navigator for PLanetary EXploration

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The main goal of the SINPLEX project is to develop an innovative solution in order to reduce significantly the mass of the navigation subsystem for exploration missions which include a landing and/or a rendezvous and capture or docking phase. It is a contribution to the strengthening of the European position for space exploration. It targets increasing the scientific return of exploration missions, enabling new types of missions and targets, and reducing launch cost and travel time.

Several planned international space exploration missions target the Moon, asteroids, comets, planets and planetary moons. They will bring robotic vehicles to these targets and will provide the capability to return samples to Earth. In general for all space mission but in particula for this kind of missions, mass is one of the most critical factors. Therefore reducing the mass of components or complete subsystems of an exploration vehicle is a key enabling factor for the future exploration of our solar system and beyond.

The mass reduction - while still creating a good navigation performance - is achieved by (1) applying functional integration of the different sensors, (2) utilizing micro and nanotechnologies for compacting electronics, and (3) using sensor hybridization approaches to improve the performance of the complete navigation subsystem.

The project’s objectives are: (a) the development of a integrated novel navigation subsystem architecture, (b) the production of a breadboard and (c) the demonstration of its applicability for object relative robotic navigation for space applications (TRL 4).

The first phase of the project will focus on elaborating the requirements and defining an architecture of the navigation system. This will be followed by design phase, a manufacturing phase and a verification phase where the produced beadboard hardware and software will be tested in terrestrial test benches and test facilities.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Navigating a spacecraft is one of the greatest challenges that engineers face while designing new missions to distant planets, their moons and even asteroids. Once the spacecraft is in flight, a new all-in-one navigation system promises to reliably guide it through the solar system to its target.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Spacecraft navigation is most commonly performed from the ground, where tracking stations collect and process all the distance and velocity data to determine the spacecraft's orbit. Although very accurate, ground-based navigation is expensive and requires continuous contact. It also needs time to provide the information to the spacecraft. For these reason, it is not suitable for deep space exploration whenever immediate action is needed for example during landing.

For space exploration missions that will take robotic vehicles to their destination and possibly return samples to Earth, the mass to be launched and sent to orbit is also of critical importance. The EU-funded 'Small integrated navigator for planetary exploration' (http://www.sinplex.eu/ (SINPLEX)) project aimed to offer the key to significantly reducing the mass of the navigation sub-system.

SINPLEX researchers developed a lightweight autonomous navigation system. This all-in-one navigation system consists of a star tracker, a laser altimeter, a video camera, an inertial measurement system and an on-board computer. Reducing mass while maintaining high performance was achieved by the miniaturisation of sensors' hardware and fusing data within a Kalman filter.

3D printing was combined with investment casting to develop a very compact housing of aluminium for the sensors. Among the benefits of this combination were huge mass savings and a high degree of functional integration of sensors' hardware. The flight model has a mass of less than 6 kg and was designed to meet the needs of landing on an asteroid, a moon or capturing a sample container while in orbit.

A breadboard model of the SINPLEX system has been submitted to extensive testing to characterise the individual sensor's response, as well as its effect on overall system performance. Hardware-in-the-loop testing was performed to assess its navigation performance with representative spaceflight trajectories and to demonstrate its applicability for autonomous navigation.

The test's results revealed that the SINPLEX system has the potential to be a powerful navigation system promising significant mass savings, compared to a suite of commercial off-the-shelf components with similar performances. A number of improvements needed to improve the system's performance are already in progress in order to reliably show us the way to the skies above.