French initiatives for the improvement of space missions development

Paper number

IAC-15,D1,3,1,x29637

Author

Mr. Thibery Cussac, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France

Coauthor

Dr. Gregory Pradels, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France

Coauthor

Mr. Jean-Michel Mesnager, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France

Coauthor

Mrs. Corinne Salcedo, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France

Coauthor

Mr. Didier VASSAUX, France

Coauthor

Mr. Patrick Lelong, Airbus Defence & Space, France

Coauthor

Dr. Jean Cheganças, EADS Astrium, France

Coauthor

Mr. Philippe Terrenoire, Thales Alenia Space France, 100 Boulevard du Midi, 06150 Cannes la Bocca, France, France

Coauthor

Mr. Frédéric Aigle, Thales Alenia Space France, 100 Boulevard du Midi, 06150 Cannes la Bocca, France, France

Year

2015

Abstract

Since 2006 CNES, in partnership with the two Frenchsatellite manufacturers Airbus Defense & Space and Thales Alenia Space, works on the improvement of space mission development. The goal was to increase  the  common  parts  between  projects  to  gain  in  productivity  and  inter-operability  and  to  ease 
adoption of standards such as the ECSS within industry. 

The first initiative, called ISIS for Initiative for Space Innovative Standards,  was dedicated to define  a normative  framework  improving  housekeeping  space  services  interoperability  and  reuse.  This  led  to produce  a  set  of  system  -  satellite  engineering  requirements  and  ground-to-space  interfaces  and operability requirements. This work involved the three partners in order to maximize synergies with the internal  processes,  best  practices  and  current  product  lines  design.  CNES  is  now  supporting  the 
convergence  of  industrial  platform  product  lines  (mainly  their  avionic  cores)  toward  ISIS  through institutional  programs  as  the  new  scientific  space  missions  MERLIN  (CNES/DLR)  and  SWOT (CNES/NASA).  In  addition,  CNES  is  developing  a  ground  control  segment  product  line  capable  of operating any satellite based on ISIS specifications. 

The second initiative, called Myriade Evolutions, was to develop a new platform, compliant with the ISIS standard,  to  extend  current  industrial  product  lines  offers  to  the  “350-400kg  satellite  class”.  On  top of ISIS requirements, the three partners agreed to commonly define and develop the units fitting this class of performance and compatible to their respective avionic cores. This result in the production of 10 new units  or  sub-assembly:  a  platform  structure,  a  propulsion  module,  a  solar  array,  a  battery,  a  power 
conditioning system, a mass memory, a reaction wheels, a S-band transceiver, a X band transmitter and a GNSS receiver. 

Thanks to these two initiatives, Airbus Defense & Space, Thales Alenia Space and CNES will be able to produce satellite platforms and space missions at avery attractive development and operational cost. MERLIN is the first scientific mission based on the Myriade Evolutions platform planned to be integrated and  tested  in  early  2017.  Other  governmental  or  commercial  projects  already  implement  some  of  the 
common Myriade Evolutions units. 

The proposed paper will introduce in details the ISIS and Myriade Evolutions initiatives (origin, rational and product lines) and how they are implemented through the first scheduled missions as MERLIN and SWOT, providing a first feedback on the ISIS implementation.

Abstract document

IAC-15,D1,3,1,x29637.brief.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-15,D1,3,1,x29637.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.