CASTOR · Challenging Autonomous Spacecraft through Trajectory Optimization with Robustness
Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2023-11-01 → 2026-02-28
- EU contribution
- €205,524
- Participants
- 3
- Scheme
- HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Challenging Autonomous Spacecraft through Trajectory Optimization with Robustness
The CASTOR project (Challenging Autonomous Spacecraft through Trajectory Optimization with Robustness) emerges in response to a booming space economy characterized by an increasing number of both commercial near‐Earth and deep-space missions. Traditional ground-based Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) operations are not scalable, particularly for small-scale platforms such as CubeSats, whose low-cost nature and inherent hardware limitations demand a rethinking of on-board autonomy. CASTOR aims to develop a robust, computationally efficient framework for autonomous guidance and control. Its objectives are to design an innovative closed-loop guidance algorithm, capable of re-optimizing trajectories under uncertain dynamic and environmental conditions, deploy it on spacecraft-compatible hardware, and validate the complete system in a laboratory setting simulating close-proximity operations around minor bodies. In doing so, the project addresses critical challenges like reducing human intervention and operational costs while ensuring high-performance autonomous space missions.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
A new space era is coming. Numerous miniaturized probes will soon pervade the solar system for commercial and exploration needs. Constellations made of thousands of spacecraft will soon revolutionize space-based services. In the next future, minor bodies will be the final destination of diverse space missions, since they can give answers to the origin of life and provide resources for the sustainable development of the humanity. However, the state-of-the-art is to control space probes from ground. The need for large teams and specific infrastructures yields extremely expensive operations, that do not scale for small probes.The CASTOR project (Challenging Autonomous Spacecraft through Trajectory Optimization with Robustness) will address the spacecraft operation problem by fostering autonomous guidance and control for future small satellites in the vicinity of minor bodies. In order to reach its aim, the project envisages the definition of an efficient method for robust guidance and control in close proximity and its deployment on appropriate spacecraft-compatible hardware. A concurrent methodology will be exploited to implement the high-performance high-efficiency hardware-software set. Validation in a relevant laboratory environment will be performed exploiting the EXTREMA Simulation Hub, developed within the ERC EXTREMA project at Politecnico di Milano, and its associated facility RAFFAELLO, able to simulate the neighbourhood of an asteroid.CASTOR foresees the involvement of two top-level space agencies, NASA and ESA, and of one of the most important universities in the space research, Politecnico di Milano, that will surely help the project to reach its objectives and maximize its future impact.The outcomes from this project will have a significant impact on the future of space exploration and exploitation, increasing dramatically the potential scientific return and opening the space and its market to new operators, such as small enterprises and universities.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- POLITECNICO DI MILANO · MilanoCoordinatorItaly
- EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY · PARISFrance
- NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION · WashingtonUnited States
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/101103826
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e508f0b1c1&appId=PPGMS
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e52c0ae6b3&appId=PPGMS
Data: CORDIS, © European Union