Projects  Summary

 MAGIA : a 400 kg minisatellite conceived to perform as a Moon Orbiter for scientific data gathering.   Spacesys performed,  under subcontract to  Rheinmetall Italia, the satellite platform design. Rheinmetall was the Prime Contractor to ASI.   

MIOSAT.  this is a remote sensing minisatellite equipped with a variety of optical payloads and some experiments. The Prime Contractor is Rheinmetall Italia. Spacesys supported the Prime to review part of the technical documentation, and afterwards performed a feasibility study of a low cost telescope as a back-up solution to the baseline defined by one of Rheinmetall subcontractors.  

FLORAD  #1 : in the frame of ASI's Small Missions initiative, developed in 2008, the University La Sapienza was Prime Contractor for the feasibility study of a Flower constellation made by three satelites equipped with MMW radiometers with a view to support the short and medium term weather and climate forecasts. The team included ELITAL who subcontracted to Spacesys the tasks  of identifying which antenna configuration was  more suitable for the multifrequency radiometer; to perform surveys on the availability of MMW components operating in the 80 to  200 GHz frequency range; and  to perform a  payload initial design including  accommodation studies considering the VEGA launcher as a promising candidate. 

FLORAD #2: To demonstrate the MIOSAT platform capability, Spacesys proposed to RHI  a side study to accommodate the FLORAD payload on that platform. In the course of this Study  both the payload and the MIOSAT platform were  cleverly modified to accommodate all three spacecraft on a single VEGA launch, so to considerably reduce the launch and system costs. 

VHR optical satellite : the increasing demand of  optical remote sensing satellites equipped with Very High Resolution (VHR) optical instruments has led to the development of massive and costly spacecraft carrying telescopes with large mirrors and long focal lenghts. Spacesys  performed studies about  satellites injected  in  rather low orbital altitudes, down to 400 km, equipped with electrical propulsion to counteract the athmospheric drag.  This approach reduces considerably , for the same ground resolution, the diameter of the optical mirror  and the focal lenght, with  attendant mass , volume and cost savings. 

This in-house Study was instrumental in defining the AROSAT concept.
 

AROSAT:  the studies performed on low orbit altitude optical satellites led to conceive a state.of-the art spacecraft characterized by both a low launch mass and  high ground resolution   The project was started by Rheinmetall on Company's funds and Spacesys was responsible for the satellite system  definition, the platform (except for the stucture), specifying the optical telescope , establishing first contacts with the prospective camera supplier, and identifying prospective HW suppliers for a make-buy programme alternative.

Air-launched Satellite: in the framework of an AVIO-ELV study for air-launching microsat in the 50-100 kg range for short duration tactical mission, Spacesys performed a study of several alternatives, one of which consists of a microsatellite weighing about 60 Kg, flying at about 460 km in a near polar plane. The satellite is equipped with  six panchro cameras providing 15 m ground resolution over more than 800 km swath, and a 25 cm diam. short telescope providing a ground resolution around 2 m over a swath of 15-20 km    

Data Relay Satellite constellation in MEO : This system was conceived by Spacesys, as an alternative or complement to a more conventional Data Relay System based on geostationary satellites.  The proposed system consists of a constellation of six satellites injected in two orbital planes  at an altitude around 10000 km. Each orbital plane contains three equispaced  satellites interconnected via MMW intersatellite links. The system geometry and the architectural features of the payloads installed  on each satellite increase considerably the connectivity between  LEO surveillance satellites and the ground stations, reducing to nearly zero the time delay between data takes and data downloading to ground. 

We are presently exploring ways/companies interested in developing and exploiting such a system  . 

AstroSat-SkyWave : this was  a self.financed project aiming at fulfilling the needs of three  communities: the astro-amateurs, the radio-amateurs and the engineering educational institutions. An initial feasibility study was carried out from March 07 to April 08, with the support of scientific Researchers, radio and astro-amateurs that provided their initial requirements. The Study showed some criticalities and the need for simplifications also to reduce the project cost estimates. The feasibility study was restarted in 2009 with a view to define a multipurpose platform also useable for commercial applications.   

Ponysat: this in-house project, a spin-off from the AstroSat-SkyWave project, concerns a family of modularly-built micro-platforms  using low-cost (mainly COTS as far as applicable)  equipments, intended for commercial applications. Higher performance versions are also possible changing some building blocks and parts selection. At present a low cost high-to.moderate resolution optical mission is being considered

MIGNON : this is an ESA technology study aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of MEM filters. The Prime is RFmicrotech, subcontractors are FBK, ELITAL and Spacesys. Our task is to provide the team with the MEM filter test plan and to identify the most promising space applications (i.e. communication tranponders or radar systems) for the MEM filter technology

PETIT: this is another ESA technology study aimed at developing a suite of ceramic resonators filters  The Prime is RFmicrotech. Our role is the identification of candidate dielectric materials and the filter(s) intermediate and final environmental tests to demonstrate their space- qualifiability. 

3-hours elliptical orbit constellation:  Spacesys is reconsidering the prospective applications of a constellation of minisatellites injected in a sunsynchronous elliptic orbit with three hours period, which was discovered and patented years ago, by the Company Gen. Mngr.  The orbit is retrograde with an inclination of 116.6 ° required to keep invariant  the orbit apogee and perigee. The orbit eccentricity is 0.347,  the semiaxis is about 10560 km. Small variations of the orbit period are achieved through small changes in the orbit  semiaxis. The studies so far performed did  consider constellations with 3 ,  6 and even 12  satellites in different orbital planes to perform a variety of communication tasks. It is also conceivable to exploit the perigee passes for remote sensing applications as well.     

ESMO : this is  an educational project , the objective  being to design , develop, build and launch  a small Moon Orbiter  carrying a minimum of experiments. The Project,  managed by  ESA, is now in its C and D  phases. During the A and B phases, several people - now working with or for Spacesys-  participated to the Project with key responsibilities.

Femtosat / SWARM : this project , initially conceived by Spacesys and proposed to SSETI to support the continuation of their european-wide educational activities, was  based on a cubesat carrying a plurality of releasable femtosats, that is objects in the 100-200 grams mass range carrying a minimum of microminiaturized equipment and experiments. The project was indeed started but aborted after six months for finantial reasons. Spacesys is considering wether it would make sense to revive the Project in a national context.