The LUNARES (Lunar Crater Exploration Scenario) project emulates the retrieval of a scientific sample from within a permanently shadowed lunar crater by means of a heterogeneous robotic system. For the accomplished earth demonstration scenario, the Shakelton crater at the lunar south pole is taken as reference. In the areas of permanent darkness within this crater, samples of scientific interest are expected. For accomplishment of such kind of mission, an approach of a heterogeneous robotic team consisting of a wheeled rover, a legged scout as well as a robotic arm mounted on the landing unit was chosen. All robots act as a team to reach the mission goal. To prove the feasibility of the chosen approach, an artificial lunar crater environment has been established to test and demonstrate the capabilities of the robotic systems. Figure 1 depicts the systems in the artificial crater environment. For LUNARES, preexisting robots were used and modified were needed in order to integrate all subsystems into a common system control. A ground control station has been developed considering conditions of a real mission, requiring information of autonomous task execution and remote controlled operations to be displayed for human operators. The project successfully finished at the end of 2009. This paper reviews the achievements and lessons learned during the project.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

After an introduction into the complex task of mission design for satellite constellations, this paper provides an overview of the platform concepts for constellation satellites that have been developed at OHB-System. The objectives of these constellations cover Earth Observation, Communication, Navigation, and Reconnaissance. For the SAFIR-2 satellite system OHB performed the development of the gravity-gradient stabilised micro-satellite, which provides global bi-directional telecommunication services. Within the INES study, OHB performed the predevelopment of a LEO constellation for the European Global Navigation Satellite System. INES was configured as a 63/9/3 Walker constellation of three-axis stabilised mini-satellites. OHB-System, as the European service provider of the ORBCOMM communications system, recently has performed a predevelopment of a next generation mini-satellite bus to replace the current Microstar™ platform. SAR-Lupe is a satellite constellation for synthetic aperture reconnaissance, which is scheduled for launch later this year. It consists of up to five spacecraft in three different polar orbit planes, at an altitude of 500 km. The ESA mission named Swarm aims at the mapping of the geomagnetic field with unprecedented accuracy. OHB-System has performed the design development of these spacecraft, the main scientific instrument of which is a magnetometer package carried on an articulated boom.