Thales Alenia Space and Magellium Artal Group chosen for DIANE, a project demonstrating an orbital capture and inspection service

French space agency CNES and Bpifrance have chosen a Thales Alenia Space-led consortium, along with Magellium Artal Group, to demonstrate an in-orbit capture and inspection service, a program dubbed DIANE (Démonstration d’Inspection et Amarrage Novatrice Embarquée). This project is part of the France 2030 national investment plan.

© Thales Alenia Space/E.Briot

DIANE addresses a major challenge for the space industry, by making it more sustainable and eco-friendly. It has become especially important to meet this challenge, given the proliferation of low-orbit satellites and the recent explosion of a decommissioned satellite. The project entails the operation of in-orbit EROSS (European Robotic Orbital Support Services) demonstration satellites, to show the feasibility of orbital rendezvous and capture operations, as well as the local inspection of a non-collaborative satellite in low Earth orbit (LEO).

The mission being proposed by Thales Alenia Space and Magellium Artal Group is designed to demonstrate an approach to an object representing a deactivated satellite in low orbit, then its direct capture by a robotic arm. This demonstration would be carried out within the scope of the EROSS mission, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe programs.

Thales Alenia Space will bring to the table its experience in on-orbit servicing, through a new product line of spacecraft designed to perform a number of robotic operations in orbit, including inspection, maintenance, refueling and satellite life extension.

DIANE will make use of EROSS assets already in orbit:

• A non-collaborative “customer” satellite. More specifically, a disactivated satellite in low Earth orbit that has lost attitude and orbit control will be put in “spin” mode.
• The service spacecraft will receive a software update so it can perform local operations on this satellite.

Thales Alenia Space in France is in charge of the overall mission, while Magellium Artal Group is responsible for the image processing used for vision-based position-determination and local inspection. Also involved in this mission are the German aerospace research agency DLR, which is developing the EROSS robotic arm, and Telespazio France, which will organize the customer service offering under realistic conditions and provide a processing and visualization center for inspection data.

The work package will also include adapting software and algorithms to the proposed mission, a ground demonstration on test benches and an in-orbit demonstration, spanning all activities involved in providing this service, from the original customer request all the way to delivering the relevant information in a user-accessible format. Source: Thales Alenia Space