Status of the European Student Moon Orbiter (ESMO) Project: Roger Walker, Project Manager Education Projects Unit, ESA Education Office, ESTEC 1
What is ESMO? Fourth mission in the ESA Education Satellite programme Building upon experience & lessons learned from previous projects SSETI Express: 62kg, launched 27 Oct 05 into LEO YES2: 36kg, launched 14 Sept 07 into LEO on Foton-M3 ESEO: 120kg, planned for launch in 2010 into GTO Project approach: University students design, develop, and build spacecraft subsystems, payload and ground segment systems, and perform mission operations ESA provides project management, system engineering, technical support from ESA specialists, miscellaneous components, ESTEC integration & test facilities, launch opportunity, operations support from ESOC Student-run SSETI Association supports the student teams in attracting industrial sponsors Internet-based project collaboration portal and tools provided by external contractor Project Status: Phase A Feasibility Study completed, implementation pending review SSETI Express Young Engineers Satellite 2 (YES2) 2
Why ESMO? ESMO provides: a challenging, but feasible, multidisciplinary project with international collaboration aspects for European/Canadian University students studying Engineering & Science enhanced hands-on experience and training in preparation for work on ambitious future ESA Exploration and Science missions a lower entry-level for participation in lunar exploration an inspirational and attainable outreach to high school students an opportunity for students to contribute to the scientific knowledge of the Moon 3
ESMO Objectives Education: Prepare students for careers in future projects of the European space exploration and space science programmes by providing valuable hands-on experience on a relevant & demanding project Mission: Launch the first lunar spacecraft to be designed, built and operated by students across ESA Member States and Cooperating States Place the spacecraft in a lunar orbit Acquire images of the Moon from a stable lunar orbit and transmit them back to Earth for education outreach purposes To transfer to a science orbit, and deploy a nano-satellite for conducting global, precision lunar gravity field mapping 4
Mission Profile Launch: Auxilliary payload on Ariane 5 or Soyuz ASAP (TBC) into GTO Year: 2011 Class: Mini-satellite Lunar transfer options: Solar Electric Propulsion system with low-thrust spiral out (15 months) Chemical Propulsion system with impulsive burns (3 months) Lunar capture: Capture into stable lunar orbit: highly elliptical, polar with <200 km perilune altitude Outreach: Take pictures of lunar surface in stable polar orbit (3 months) Science: Transfer to 100 km near-circular polar orbit (6 months for SEP) Deploy nano-subsatellite and acquire gravity mapping measurements (3 months) Operational lifetime: SEP: 28 months; Chemical: 9 months 5
Payload Outreach: Narrow Angle Camera (2.5 kg) 10 m lunar surface resolution from 200 km altitude Science: Lunette Nanosat Subsatellite (8 kg + 1.5 kg on ESMO) Proposal: University of Toronto Objective: precision global gravity field mapping Deployment: <200km altitude polar orbit, along track Measurement: Doppler tracking between ESMO and Lunette at S-band RF, 1 mm/s for 10 s Duration: 10 weeks for 3 global gravity field maps at 20 mgal accuracy, particularly on farside Science contribution: significant to lunar subsurface geology Exploration benefits: precision landing of all future human and robotic lander missions 6
Lunar Orbit Options Parameter Outreach mission Science mission Periapsis altitude (km) 100 100 Apoapsis altitude (km) 3600 135 Eccentricity 0.522 0.009 Inclination ( ) 89.9 90 Selected Argument of periapsis ( ) 293 90 Stable lifetime 6 months >6 months Osculating orbit Frozen orbit 7
Lunar Transfer Options Chemical Weak Stability Boundary Transfer via Sun-Earth L1 (ΔV = 1 km/s) SEP Low Thrust Transfer (24kg Xe) x 10 5 4 z [km] 2 0 2 4 6 x 10 5-2 -5 0-2 0 5 10-4 15 x 10 5 x [km] y [km] Design must be robust to any launch date in 2011 8
System Design Options Option 1: Chemical propulsion, Science mission Launch: ASAP Mini (max. 300 kg) Wet mass: 225 kg 3-axis stabilised attitude, S-band comms R4D MON/MMH Bipropellant thruster (ATV), 490 N thrust, 315 s specific impulse 8 Nitrogen cold gas attitude control thrusters Off-the-shelf propellant & pressurant tanks Body-mounted solar cells, 140W power Option 2: Electric propulsion, Science mission Launch: ASAP Mini (max. 300 kg) Wet mass: 200 kg 3-axis stabilised attitude, S-band comms QinetiQ T5 Xenon Gridded Ion Propulsion system (GOCE), 20 mn thrust, 3250 s specific impulse Off-the-shelf high pressure Xenon tank 6 Xenon Hollow Cathode Arcjet attitude control thrusters 800W double-wing solar array with SADMs 9
System Design Options Option 3: Chemical propulsion, Outreach mission Launch: ASAP Micro (max. 150+ kg) Wet mass: 170 kg Same as Science option except for 4 x R6 thrusters (Olympus), 22 N thrust each, 285 s specific impulse 4 Nitrogen cold gas attitude control thrusters Option 4: Electric propulsion, Outreach mission Launch: ASAP Micro (max. 150+ kg) Wet mass: 175 kg Otherwise, Same as Science option Baseline Selection: Chemical Propulsion, Science mission Science mission chosen over Outreach due to greater science return at similar cost Chemical propulsion chosen over electric, since mass/cost similar but operations are much shorter and simpler for student mission 10
ESMO Project Organisation Project Manager R. Walker (ESA) Project Coordinator M. Cross (ESA) Project Structure Avionics R. Schlanbusch Programmatics Politecnico di Milano Energetics G. Curti System Engineering Payload S. Forsman Platform C. Taccoli Ground Segment G. Mezzana, R. Dell'Ariccia 24 Primary teams 14 Backup teams OBDH UP Madrid TU Munich Budapest University AOCS Narvik University Lisbon Uni. SUPAERO, Milano Ryerson Comms Wroclaw University Space Environment TBD Student Team Power Warwick University Sherbrooke Uni. Elec Propulsion Southampton/Warwick Stuttgart University Chem Propulsion Milano / Napoli Stuttgart University Camera Liege University Lunette Subsat Toronto University Backup Science Open University Rome La Sapienza Barcelona Uni. Backup Other Ecole Polytechnique Structure/Config Southampton Uni UP Madrid Porto University Thermal Rome La Sapienza Politecnico di Milano Mechanisms INSA de Lyon Mission Control Rome La Sapienza Ground Stations Rome La Sapienza TU Munich Flight Dynamics Rome La Sapienza University Carlos III Madrid Mission Analysis Glasgow University 300 students 29 Universities 12 Member & Cooperating States TU Delft Porto University Harness TBD Student Team Zaragoza University Simulation Warsaw University 11
Project Timeline Phase A Feasibility Study: September 2006 September 2007 September 2007: Selection of System Design Baseline 22-26 : Phase A Review (PRR), ESTEC End : Go/no-go decision for implementation Phase B: - July 2008 (PDR) System Requirements Review (SRR) Detailed design, technical specs, AIV plan Phase C: August 2008 - July 2009 (CDR) Avionics Test Bench Engineering Model AIV Phase D: August 2009 January 2011 (AR) Flight Model AIV Phase E: February 2011-2012 Launch campaign Launch mid-2011 Lunar orbit end-2011 12
Conclusions ESMO is a powerful hands-on education and public outreach tool for future lunar exploration ESMO is an attractive and inspirational project to high school and university students ESMO is an excellent preparation and training for the next generation of lunar explorers ESMO can allow university students to contribute key scientific knowledge of use to future lunar exploration ESMO has a high potential for international collaboration partnerships 13