ESA Open Invitation To Tender AO8311
Open Date: 27/05/2015
Closing Date: 08/07/2015

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 15.197.04
Prog. Ref.: General Studies
Budget Ref.: E/0600-00 – General Studies
Special Prov.: BE+DK+FR+DE+IT+NL+ES+SE+CH+GB+IE+AT+NO+FI+PT+GR+LU+CZ+RO+PL+CA
Tender Type: C
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Directorate of Technical & Quality Manag
Department: System, Software & Technology Department
Division: Future Prep. & Strategic Studies Off.
Contract Officer: Anze Singer
Last Update Date: 27/05/2015
Update Reason: Tender issue

To contribute to space sustainability some Agencies and Governments have established or adopted policies to mitigate space debris creation. For instance, one of the requirements from the ESA IPOL on Space Debris states that satellites must remove themselves from the protected regions, within 25 years for LEO and within less than 2 months for GEO after operations have been completed . Nevertheless, even if spacecraft are designed to achieve an EOL compliance with these SDM requirements, a failure of the spacecraft, or other unforeseen event, may lead to the satellite being non-operational in the protected regions. Hence non-compliant to the SDM requirements, and therefore such a satellite may then be required to be removed by another satellite through active debris removal (ADR). This GSP study, aims to explore and analyse technological devices (e.g.: appendages or other alternatives) that could contribute to the success of a future debris removal mission, in the event the space system would become non-functional. The design solutions shall concentrate on the non-functional space system focusing among others on a) passive attitude stabilisation approaches, b) solutions to assist rendezvous, grappling or other means to facilitate safe structural attachment (from the external ADR space system to the target), reflectors to assist tracking and improve accurate positioning, etc.

If you wish to access the documents related to the Invitation to Tender, you have to log in to the ESA Portal.