Smart-OLEV – An Orbital Life Extension Vehicle For Servicing Commercial Spacerafts In GEO

Paper number

IAC-07-D1.1.06

Author

Dr. Clemens Kaiser, Kayser-Threde GmbH, Germany

Coauthor

Mr. Fredrik Sjöberg, Swedish Space Corporation, Sweden

Coauthor

Mr. Juan Manuel del Cura, SENER Ingeneria y Sistemas, S.A., Spain

Coauthor

Mr. Baard Eilertsen, United Kingdom

Year

2007

Abstract

Orbital Satellite Services Limited (OSSL) is a satellite servicing company that is developing an Orbit Life Extension Vehicle (OLEV) to extend the operational lifetime of geostationary satellites. The industrial consortium of SSC (Sweden), Kayser-Threde (Germany) and Sener (Spain) is in charge to develop and industrialize the space and ground segment. It is a fully commercial program with support of several space agencies during the development phase. The business plan is based on life extension for high value commercial satellites while also providing the satellite operators with various fleet management services such as graveyard burns, slot transfers and on orbit protection against replacement satellite or launch failures.

The OLEV spacecraft will be able to dock with a geostationary satellite and uses an electrical propulsion system to extend its life by taking over the attitude control and station keeping functions. The OLEV system is building on the SMART-1 platform developed by Swedish Space Corporation. It was developed for ESA as a technology test-bed to demonstrate the use of electrical propulsion for interplanetary orbit transfer manoeuvres, and is very well suited for the OLEV application. The highly successful SMART-1 lunar mission ended when SMART-1 intentionally hit the lunar surface in September 2006. The concept is called SMART-OLEV and takes advantage of the low cost, low mass SMART-1 platform by a maximum use of recurrent platform technology.

Kayser-Threde is responsible for the complete docking payload technology for the space and ground segment, especially for the complete control loop including sensors, actuators and algorithms to be able to perform a fully autonomous docking in space. Recent developments have led to an upgrade of the docking payload originally developed for the CX-OLEV concept. Sener is in charge of the GNC and the mission and operational analyses. SSC is system prime as well as responsible for the overall satellite ground and flight operations. OSSL is the marketing and sales company created to commercialize the SMART-OLEV vehicle(s) and associated services.

The paper presents the recent developments of the OLEV concept and the current status of the program focussing mainly on operational aspects like the strategies of the rendezvous and docking phase and for attitude and orbit control in case of a combined spacecraft.

Abstract document

IAC-07-D1.1.06.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-07-D1.1.06.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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