Development of a modular system for payloads accommodation on spatial platforms

In the background of this new and commercial economy, various projects and mission are turned towards the transportation to Low-Earth Orbit and the management of experiments developed by private entities. To accomplish this demand, also the European Space Agency is working on vehicles and platforms that allow experimentation in a microgravity environment, as well as the in-orbit validation and demonstration of technologies and the satellites inspection. Such systems could have the advantage of being uncrewed and reusable, therefore the chance of returning experiments to Earth is a very important utility. The main objective of this study is to provide guidelines and the first results of a design and development process of a payload accommodation facility to be installed on space systems aimed at the in-orbit experimentation. The platform should integrate payloads and provide them with structural support, power distribution, data handling and thermal control. To satisfying the requests of the company that supports this project work, ALTEC SpA, requirements of modularity, scalability and reusability have been considered as the main drivers in the design of the system. Starting from the study of existing facilities, some system engineering activities have been carried out, i.e. stakeholder analysis, functional analysis and definition of requirements. Therefore, after the identification of possible solutions responding to objectives and requirements, a trade-off analysis has been performed, allowing the selection of the optimal solution according to different criteria, defined on the base of mission objectives and stakeholder needs. The selected solution has been designed through a CAD and the preliminary evaluation of budgets. Necessary equipment for subsystems has been identified among COTS components and a conceptual configuration has been proposed. Finally, the feasibility of the project has been analysed under two aspects: the technological challenges in the development of the system and its adaption to different payloads and different missions from one side, the compatibility of the facility to the system or the vehicle and its operations from the other one.