Meet the team: ERMES
In brief
Docking is when a spacecraft joins with a space station or another spacecraft in space. In the last decade, the amount of small satellite applications has increased significantly and as a result, new technological, scientific, and commercial experiments have been launched into space. Emerging companies are making their way into space with what many call the “New Space Economy” by use of so-called CubeSats. Fly Your Thesis! Team ERMES will be designing and testing an autonomous docking maneuver between two free-floating CubeSat models.
In-depth
Update 23/03/2023: The final report is available! Discover what the team has achieved here.
Team ERMES is composed of six master Students from the University of Padova. Four of these Italian students are Master students in Aerospace Engineering and the other two are Master students in Computer Engineering. The name of the team (ERMES) stands for Experimental Rendezvous in Microgravity Environment Study. Their target is to investigate docking procedures for autonomous small satellites with their focus on proximity operations.
To accomplish all of this, the students will set out to build two mock-up satellites in a CubeSat form-factor that are both equipped with a Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) system and mechanical docking interfaces. They envision these satellites working in a target-chaser configuration, where the chaser is active in moving towards the target, and the target itself being cooperative adjusting its attitude in correlation to the chaser. This chaser will be able to move around using a cold gas propulsion system which the team intends to build around expendable CO2 cartridges. The target on the other hand will be able to change its orientation using three reaction wheels.
For this the students rely on the Fly Your Thesis! programme, as they want to test their system in micro-gravity. Their type of experiment is referred to as "free-floating" this limits the time of actual micro-gravity to around 5 seconds (from about 22 seconds), before G-Jitter causes their free-floaters to collide with the edges of their assigned space. So, a lot depends on their dedicated proximity navigation software. Luckily, the students can count on some heritage and findings collected from a previous “Fly your Thesis!” experiments.
Is the team up for this engineering challenge? A board consisting of Novespace engineers, ELGRA (European Low Gravity Research Association) members, and ESA personnel thinks the team can hit their targets using the support and guidance of the FYT! programme.
If you want to see if team ERMES stays on target, then you can follow the team on their media platforms for frequent updates!
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ermes_fyt/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/FytErmes