The ISECG identifies one of the first exploration steps as in situ investigations of the moon or asteroids. Europe is developing payload concepts for drilling and sample analysis, a contribution to a 250kg rover as well as for sample return. To achieve these missions, ESA depends on international partnerships. Such missions will be seldom, expensive and the drill/sample site selected will be based on observations from orbit not calibrated with ground truth data. Many of the international science community’s objectives can be met at lower cost, or the chances of mission success improved and the quality of the science increased by making use of an innovative, low mass, mobile payload following the LEAG recommendations. This smart payload when used alone will accurately determine lunar volatile distribution over a wide area, including PSR’s, as well as providing ground truth data to calibrate orbital observations. If two, or more, smart payloads are deployed, a greater area will be covered. If the smart payload is used as a scout for ESA’s planned 250kg drilling rover or sample return mission, sampling locations of higher value will be identified. The main innovation is to develop an in situ sampling technology capable of depth-resolved extraction of volatiles, and then to package within this tool, the analyser itself, so as to maximise transfer efficiency and minimise sample handling and its attendant mass requirements and risk of sample alteration. By building on national, EC and ESA funded research and developments, this project will develop to TRL6 instruments that together form a smart modular mobile payload that could be flight ready in 2020. This instrument will be tested in a highly representative environment including thermal, vacuum and regolith simulant and the integrated payload demonstrated in a representative environment. A roadmap, complemented by an innovative PPP funding approach, for the implementation of the LUVMI flight model will also be developed.

The space domain, as many other engineering sectors, is actively considering novel methods and tools based on artificial intelligence, Digital Twins, virtual design and testing, and other Industry 4.0 concepts, in order to manage the increased complexity of the design of upcoming satellites. Nevertheless, especially from the satellite on-board software engineering point of view, these technologies require a solid ground to be built upon. First of all, the computational power of the hardware platform must meet the needs of the advanced algorithms running on top of it. The software layer too must both allow an efficient use of the hardware resources and at the same time guarantee non-functional properties such as dependability in compliance with ECSS standards. Finally, the design methods need to adapt to the specific challenges posed by both the increased complexity of the hardware/software layers and the Industry 4.0 concepts. The METASAT vision is that a design methodology based on Model-Based engineering jointly with the use of open architecture hardware constitutes that solid ground. To reach its vision, METASAT will leverage existing software virtualisation layers (e.g., hypervisors), that already provide guarantees in terms of standards compliance, on top of high-performance computing platforms based on open hardware architectures. The focus of the project will be on the development of a toolchain to design software modules for this hardware/software layer. Without such measures the time and cost of developing new systems could become prohibitive as system complexity grows, reducing competitiveness, innovation, and potentially dependability across the industry. A high quality and complementary consortium comprising knowledge generators (IKL, BSC and ALES), plus an SME technology integrator (FEN) and an end user from the space sector (OHB), will be able to test in a real scenario the new design toolchain that will enable the runtime deployment of software module

SPACEBEAM aims at designing, realizing and testing an innovative radar receiver that will enable the concept of reconfigurable multi-beam Scan-on-Receive Synthetic Aperture Radar for Earth observation applications. In order to comply with the requirements of future swarms and constellations of low-Earth orbit satellites and cubesats in terms of performance, size, weight, power consumption and cost, the envisioned receiver will be based on an optical beamforming network realized as a photonic integrated circuit (PIC). The PIC will implement a precise, continuous beamforming of wideband signals (>600MHz) from an array of 12 antenna elements into 3 beams of 4 antennas each, with the capability to flexibly change the set of antennas per beam, as well as the number of output beams (from 3 beams of 4 antennas each, to 2 of 6, to 1 of 12). At the same time, the PIC will also realize a frequency-agnostic photonic down-conversion of signals in the range from 5 to 40 GHz, down to 1.5 GHz, so that the output signals can be directly digitized. These innovative features make the SPACEBEAM PIC a powerful device for future Earth observation applications. The PIC will be implemented using two materials platforms, to achieve a compact “hybrid” chip-assembly including several active and passive functions (lasers, detectors, modulators, filters, switches, delays, phase shifters). The PIC will be controlled using a novel actuation technique based on low-power consuming piezo elements. In order to push forward the maturity of the SPACEBEAM technology (target TRL 6), the project will also develop and test a Space-compliant package for the PIC. The packaged PIC will be included in a specifically designed Engineering Qualified Model of the multi-beam SCORE-SAR sensor, to properly test the performance of the entire system. The photonics-based SCORE SAR system will therefore show more functionalities, better performance, and lower size, weight, and power consumption than the current systems.