The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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A TDE funded activity, led by Airbus Defence and Space (UK) with the Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (France), designed an integrated framework for co-designing planetary spacecraft with large flexible appendages. The objective of this framework is to minimise the spacecraft mass while simultaneously satisfying the AOCS requirements.
ENVISION, from the Science Directorate, was used as a comparative benchmark test case. The spacecraft has fine pointing requirements, with many flexible appendages (solar arrays, synthetic aperture radar, subsurface radar antenna). The implementation of either a direct or iterative co-design showed successful optimisation of the spacecraft total mass – reducing the total spacecraft mass by 42 kg – while being able to satisfy the mission and spacecraft performance requirements.
The image shows the ENVISION spacecraft, highlighting the structural parameters considered in the co-design optimisation process.