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Development and Launch of the World’s First Orbital Propellant Tanker
Abstract
This paper describes the development of Orbit Fab's Tanker-001 Tenzing mission, the world's first orbital propellant tanker. The development of a robust orbital propellant supply chain is critical to accelerating the growth of government and commercial space activities. The widespread availability of spacecraft refueling has the potential to provide a number of revolutionary benefits. High-value space assets could have their operational lives extended, as they would no longer be constrained by the amount of propellant stored onboard for maneuvering. On-orbit servicing missions would become more efficient, as servicing vehicles could be refueled and repeatedly used. A large orbital propellant supply would also enable new mission and business models based on operational flexibility and frequent maneuvering. These benefits would be particularly impactful on small satellites, where the ability to refuel could overcome the operational constraints of having smaller propellant tanks. This will greatly expand the market for small spacecraft as it increases their range of missions and capabilities.
... The NIAC Phase I concluded that on-asteroid processing, including heating, condensation, electrolysis, concentration, and freezing, is a feasible route and involves both low-and high-TRL technologies. More recent work by Orbit Fab and others in areas such as HTP production [5,6], refueling [7], and regolith processing [8,9] has since raised the TRL of many of the technologies that will enable a Grand Landed Tour. ...
... Early production of HTP retained significant contaminants which led to anomalies, but today's peroxide is very pure and decomposes extremely slowly, with a model indicating that stannate stabilizers limit the decomposition rates to 10 -4 -10 -5 % per year [4]. Monopropellant HTP has flight heritage on several spacecraft, including the Orbit Fab Tanker-001 Tenzing fuel depot, launched in mid-2021 [7]. Operational lifetimes of 3 -6 years were demonstrated on the Syncom 2, Syncom 3, Intelsat I, Intelsat 2 -2, Intelsat 2 -3, and Intelsat 2 -4 satellites without any HTP anomalies [16]. ...
Current research trends in In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) and In Space Manufacturing of propellant are heavily focused on the production of cryogenic propellants such as liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The authors have been studying an alternative approach: the manufacture of a storable monopropellant, High Test Peroxide (HTP). Previous work by John S. Lewis [NIAC Phase I Final Report for NNX15AL85G (2016)] explored the feasibility of In Space Production of Storable Propellants from resources available on asteroids, Mars and the Moon. Dimethyl ether (DME) and HTP were identified as the preferred storable bipropellant combination for deep-space missions and retrieval of space-derived resources to Earth orbit. However, difficulties producing DME indicated a need to first develop systems that extract only water for production of storable hydrogen/oxygen-based propellants. A simplified architecture, which was not explored, involves the extraction of water and production of HTP for use as a monopropellant for multi-target missions. While monopropellant HTP specific impulse is lower, system complexity is significantly reduced. As such, the authors have begun to study an innovative "Grand, Landed Tour" multi-target exploration mission taking advantage of ISRU HTP production to explore and land on asteroids in the outer belt. This concept could similarly enable multiple-landing tours of the icy moons of any of the outer planets, of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, or of other water-rich objects, such as Earth's Moon. Such an architecture could enable a low cost sample return mission from the lunar surface with significantly smaller landed mass on the moon and increased cost effectiveness. The missions study assumes delivery to a Ceres rendezvous trajectory, which is not the emphasis of the work being undertaken, although efforts will be made to minimize initial system mass. At Ceres, as at all destinations, we will make science measurements and generate enough propellant to launch and proceed to the next target. The outer belt offers a series of intriguing objects, including the Hilda asteroids in a 3:2 orbital resonance with Jupiter. This paper discusses the initial mission objectives and requirements of this study, the major trades undertaken and details the technical path forward in the industrial chemistry work needed to understand the size, weight, power and cost of a conversion system capable of taking in water and producing propellant grade HTP. It concludes with a discussion of the future work being undertaken by the interdisciplinary team across industry and academia.
... The RAFTI experiment demonstrated the operation of the rapidly attachable interface the company has developed, through a refuelling experiment referred to as "Project Furphy" where water was transferred between two test-beds. [29] Level of complexity: Medium -complex docking interface, refuelling operation between two tanks using a simulant, on-board the ISS in a microgravity environment. ...
In conjunction with the considerable growth of the space ecosystem over the past decade, manufacturing and design practices have evolved accordingly. The space industry is currently driven by a market pull: new and traditional actors are forced to develop technologies to meet market needs in a cost-effective and commercially viable manner. However, designing, building and testing, deploying and operating satellites-whether for commercial or scientific purposes-is still a prohibitively expensive undertaking. The complexity of space systems leads to long design life cycles and frequent delays, as well as overspending, at times resulting in the cancellation of projects. This paper proposes a new approach to designing low-cost missions, especially missions aimed at technology demonstration-complete satellite systems and microgravity experiments included. Digital, Agile, Concurrent, and Redundancy-based Engineering (DACRE) is a combination of agile methodology and concurrent engineering with a focus on lead times and capability-driven agile aerospace engineering. The novelty comes from the simultaneous design of two concepts of different complexities to enable fast pivoting into a backup mission requiring minimal testing. While the concept of agile engineering is often difficult to implement in the case of physical systems that are not built iteratively, by extending an existing and complete product, it is possible to leverage some of its benefits. DACRE relies on constant collaboration between engineers, physically located in different geographic locations, who use various forms of cloud services and collaborative design methods to simultaneously develop and optimize subsystems. It incorporates an agile approach, which takes into consideration the shortest achievable lead times, optimized for cost, and sacrificing requirements and capabilities where necessary. The paper demonstrates the use of this methodology for the development of a microgravity experiment payload that was successfully launched to space and recovered in 2021. The flexibility offered by DARCE allowed the delivery of the experiment in five weeks, and enabled the fast redesign of the system when integration issues came up.
... Since launch, Tenzing has successfully begun operations and verified nominal propellant storage in the primary tank system. A more detailed general overview of the Tenzing mission can be found in a paper published earlier this year at the 35th Annual Small Satellite Conference [6]. ...
This paper presents an overview of Orbit Fab's Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface (RAFTI) and results from its first flight aboard the Tanker-001 Tenzing Mission. The RAFTI service valve is a replacement for existing spacecraft fill/drain valves and enables in-orbit grappling/attachment and fuel transfer. The development of a robust orbital propellant supply chain is critical to accelerating the growth of government and commercial space activities. Widespread availability of spacecraft refueling has the potential to provide a number of revolutionary benefits. Existing high-value space assets could have their operational lives extended, as they will no longer be constrained by running out of propellant for maneuvering, and on-orbit servicing missions would become more efficient as servicing vehicles can be repeatedly reused after refueling between missions. A large orbital propellant supply would also enable cheaper mobility for spacecraft, allowing new missions and business models based on operational flexibility and frequent maneuvering. RAFTI is a key enabler for refueling as it provides a reliable interface for fuel transfer. The RAFTI architecture has three main components. The RAFTI Service Valve (RSV), which is the primary subject of this paper, serves as a passive fill/drain and orbital refueling valve. It is complemented by the RAFTI Space Coupling Half (SCH), which is a combined fluid transfer interface and grapple feature that attaches to the RSV in space to enable fuel transfer, and the RAFTI Ground Coupling (RGC), which is used for ground fueling. The RSV is flying for the first time aboard Orbit Fab's Tanker-001 Tenzing spacecraft. Launched June 30 2021, Tenzing is the world's first orbital propellant tanker and a testbed for key orbital refueling technologies. Tenzing is a 35 kg small satellite with a bus provided by Astro Digital carrying a supply of storable high-test peroxide (HTP) monopropellant. Tenzing carries two RAFTI Service Valves, one for the spacecraft's primary propellant storage tank and one for the spacecraft's propulsion system. This paper presents information on RAFTI, its role in the Tenzing architecture, and data showing RAFTI's performance from pre-flight testing and flight. The paper also discusses lessons learned from RAFTI's use on the Tenzing mission and presents the new RAFTI Service Valve Block 2 design based on these results and lessons learned.
Safe execution of close proximity operations between two spacecraft is critical to the development of refueling, satellite inspection, and servicing technologies. Previous missions successfully implementing proximity operations and formation flight have done so as a primary mission objective with extensive technology development campaigns and single-use mission planning procedures. This approach is not viable in future widespread refueling and servicing activities where safe proximity operations will not be the primary objective of missions, but rather one phase amongst many in their life cycle. To enable this transition, it is necessary to demonstrate the possibility of implementing proximity operations maneuvers with spacecraft developed using primarily commercial off the shelf (COTS) components with a scalable and adaptable mission planning and operations framework. For these reasons, a proximity flyby operation is planned for the Tanker-001 Tenzing mission. Tanker-001 is the world's first orbital propellant tanker: a ~35 kg small satellite that in addition to its primary mission, serves as an on-orbit testbed for key technologies enabling in-orbit refueling, including Orbit Fab's Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface (RAFTI), the SCOUT-Vision stereo imaging, processing, and relative navigation system by SCOUT, and a Benchmark Space Systems HTP (High Test Peroxide) monopropellant thruster system. Successful completion of this flyby activity will demonstrate the feasibility of implementing close proximity operations as a secondary mission objective with SmallSats using COTS components and pave the way for future widespread refueling and inspection activities involving proximity maneuvers.
Absolute attitude estimation sensors provide high accuracy pointing capabilities to spacecraft, but as developed thus far, they constitute a large fraction of CubeSat mission’s budget. We introduce SPE Lab Open Star Tracker (SOST), an ultra-low-cost solution that currently provides sub-arcminute precision at a frequency of 1 to 3 estimations per minute in the Lost-In-Space scenario. Our Star Tracker development rests on open source astronomy software, the Raspberry Pi 3 B+, and its camera. We developed a new algorithm to solve the Lost-In-Space problem that works by acquiring an image and comparing it with different stellar catalog segments. We tested our algorithm using images from working satellites. The functioning of our platform was evaluated by using night-sky pictures taken from ground. We also conducted environmental tests of our platform by using a thermal-vacuum chamber. We optimized the catalog segment separation by analyzing the execution time, success rate, precision, and power consumption of the full platform. SOST delivers a mean precision below 1-arcminute for the boresight direction. With a segment separation of 10°, the attitude estimation is found in the 97.3% of the cases with processing time under 20s. The success rate improves to 99.8% by using 5° as segments separation but processing time doubles. This platform is open and freely available to CubeSat researchers interested in further development or deployment.
The capability of an active spacecraft to accurately estimate its relative position and attitude (pose) with respect to an active/inactive, artificial/natural space object (target) orbiting in close-proximity is required to carry out various activities like formation flying, on-orbit servicing, active debris removal, and space exploration. According to the specific mission scenario, the pose determination task involves both theoretical and technological challenges related to the search for the most suitable algorithmic solution and sensor architecture, respectively. As regards the latter aspect, electro-optical sensors represent the best option as their use is compatible with mass and power limitation of micro and small satellites, and their measurements can be processed to estimate all the pose parameters. Overall, the degree of complexity of the challenges related to pose determination largely varies depending on the nature of the targets, which may be actively/passively cooperative, uncooperative but known, or uncooperative and unknown space objects. In this respect, while cooperative pose determination has been successfully demonstrated in orbit, the uncooperative case is still under study by universities, research centers, space agencies and private companies. However, in both the cases, the demand for space applications involving relative navigation maneuvers, also in close-proximity, for which pose determination capabilities are mandatory, is significantly increasing. In this framework, a review of state-of-the-art techniques and algorithms developed in the last decades for cooperative and uncooperative pose determination by processing data provided by electro-optical sensors is herein presented. Specifically, their main advantages and drawbacks in terms of achieved performance, computational complexity, and sensitivity to variability of pose and target geometry, are highlighted.
Space debris is a topic of concern among many in the space community. Most forecasting analyses look centuries into the future to attempt to predict how severe debris densities and fluxes will become in orbit regimes of interest. Conversely, space operators currently do not treat space debris as a major mission hazard. This survey paper outlines the range of cost and risk evaluations a space operator must consider when determining a debris-related response. Beyond the typical direct costs of performing an avoidance maneuver, the total cost including indirect costs, political costs and space environmental costs are discussed. The weights on these costs can vary drastically across mission types and orbit regimes flown. The operator response options during a mission are grouped into four categories: no action, perform debris dodging, follow stricter mitigation, and employ ADR. Current space operations are only considering the no action and debris dodging options, but increasing debris risk will eventually force the stricter mitigation and ADR options. Debris response equilibria where debris-related risks and costs settle on a steady-state solution are hypothesized.
Space Situational Awareness (SSA) is a growing concern for National Security Among the many methods of increasing SSA is the use of space-based Laser Imaging, Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) sensors to detect, track, classify or image other spacecraft. This Thesis explores the unique trade-spaces and design decisions faced by an engineer designing such a system. It provides an overview of the basic operational principles, the major components, the impact of one design choice on all other decisions, and guidelines for making design choices when designing a space based LIDAR for Space Situational Awareness applications. System operational constraints, demands on the host spacecraft, and potential impacts on other spacecraft are explored. Finally, an illustrative system design is presented, demonstrating the interaction between system requirements, system design, and component selection.
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