ISISPACE has achieved a key milestone of the Cassini In-Orbit Demonstration (IOD) and In-Orbit Verification (IOV) mission with the successful completion of the critical design review (CDR), during which the satellite and payload designs have been consolidated, and the mission can now enter the assembly and verification stage. We are looking forward to this exciting phase to bringing these satellites to life, together with ESA and the experiment providers, and to strengthen the competitiveness of the EU space industry.
Due to the high-level of flight readiness of numerous experiments, an additional satellite was added to the Cassini mission, now consisting of three satellites, resulting in the final selection of the following experimental payloads:
- IENAI Space – Demonstration of an innovative adaptable electrospray thruster for nano-satellites
- EICAS Automazione: Multicamera star tracker with in-orbit real-time calibration and data fusion techniques.
- Arcsec: novel high-precision control reaction wheel with low power consumption and micro-vibrations
- INVENT: Radiator Verification Experiment (RAVE) to verify the functionality of a high conductance graphite-aluminum hybrid material as a radiator.
- IEAP-CTU: Prototype of a small and low-power radiation spectrometer HardPix based on pixel detectors Timepix3.
- Deimos and SkyLabs: in-flight qualification of Skylab’s new high-performance computer with demonstration of Insights4EO’s on-board real-time processing and intelligence services.
- Astrolight: demonstration of a space-to-Earth laser communication downlink system (ATLAS)
“Great to see the progress so far from this project and how the collaboration between the experiment provider, our team and the customer drives progress. Bridging the ‘technology-valley-of-death’ remains one of the issues in quickly adopting new technologies in space mission to this day, and this project accelerates a number of technologies through this valley for Europe.”, states ISISPACE Group CEO Jeroen Rotteveel.