ESA/IPC(2001)11 – Call for Exploration Technology Proposals: Appendix 1

1. Introduction

From the dawn of humankind the need to explore has driven expansion across our planet. Today this expansion continues towards other planets in the Solar System by means of robotic spacecraft — virtual explorers. Will human expansion continue? In the public consciousness, this is only a matter of time.

By 2025 an international human mission to Mars may be a reality. It may use the Moon as a way station and to prepare for the great leap. The feasibility of such a mission is being assessed; however, the necessary technologies and capabilities still need to be developed. Having reached maturity in human space flight thanks to its activities in the International Space Station (ISS) framework, Europe will have to decide whether to play a key role in the next step or join later as a junior partner. Given the time-span of such a human mission, Europe also faces the issue of how to exploit the industrial know-how developed in the ISS framework and to orient it toward the new mission. Which areas of expertise Europe wants to lead in the future has to be decided soon; this cannot be left to our future partners.

Over the next 20 years robotic missions will prepare for human missions, by collecting as much scientific and engineering data as possible without human scientists in-situ. These robotic missions will contribute and demonstrate the technologies needed to put humans on Mars and return them safely to our planet. Some of the key technologies for a human mission are also very important to the search for life in-situ on the red planet and on other Solar System planets and moons. Soft and precision landing, drilling and sample return, will not just be demonstrated for the sake of technology. These missions will carry sophisticated exobiology payloads and provide answers to some key questions on the origins of life in the Solar System, and possible causes for its extinction.

These "precursor missions" will also greatly advance our technology capability making Aurora a genuine programme for innovation. Spin-offs are expected in sensor technology; information technology, in particular spacecraft autonomy (signal return times from Mars); biochemical technology (searching for life means understanding what life is on our planet and what different forms it may take, how it can be identified, not contaminated and vice versa); navigation and communication technology (precision landing and large volume of data transmission); propulsion; power generation, conversion, transmission, conditioning and storage; thermal control; extreme temperature and radiation hardened electronics; in-situ resource utilisation; aero thermodynamics; etc.

The human mission will require proven technologies. The bulk of the technology development and advancement has to be accomplished over the next decade. With this objective in mind, the Agency is issuing this Call for Exploration Technology Proposals to non-primes to make a European "map" of foreseen technologies addressing the challenge of human and robotic planetary exploration.

The Agency welcomes all proposals which address the challenges of the Aurora programme – as outlined in the supporting documentation (to be found at ftp://ftp.estec.esa.nl/pub/columbus/aurora/index.htm), which do not duplicate ongoing work and do not address solutions that are already available.

The Agency shall fund in the first place about 20 to 30 such proposals for a preliminary assessment of feasibility, cost and schedule of development. Later funding is foreseen for other activities.

This Call for Exploration Technology Proposals focuses on early stage developments, with emphasis on promising enabling technologies, to provide ESA with a long-term technological capability and allow for the definition of new exploration missions and applications.

In each case, the proposed work shall be product/process oriented and include feasibility. The approach proposed shall aim at resolving the uncertainties on feasibility of the concept and applicability to space, demonstrating the potential performance gains. Where applicable, advantages of the proposed work at system level shall be identified.

The innovative content of the proposals shall be highlighted and well documented. Proposals overlapping/extending similar on-going activities in ESA will be rejected. The end product of the development proposed by the bidder shall be identified and its potential payback, albeit at a preliminary level, shall be discussed.

The reply is open to every non-prime Company, University and Research Institute of the ESA Member States and Canada. The Proposals shall include a discussion on the application perspectives for the product proposed, a comparison with the current alternatives and, as applicable, a strategy for further development or marketing.

More than 1 proposal is allowed but only one per company will be awarded in the first round.

The maximum budget per contract is limited to 40 kEuro, and the duration of the activity is expected to be 4 months.

Hereunder are the generic tasks applicable to each technology:

1. Context for Technology Application




The contractor shall identify the type of mission and usage to which the proposed technology is applicable and the assumptions associated with its application. In particular the contractor shall identify the environmental constraints for the use of the proposed technology and the impact on the other components of a mission.

2. Technological Advantage

The contractor shall identify the advantages of the proposed technology on the current state of the art and/or on the competing technological solutions expected at the time of introduction.



3. Feasibility Analysis

The actual feasibility of the proposed technology and the expected performance shall be analysed. The contractor shall identify and quantify the major development efforts and risks.

4. Schedule & Funding

The schedule and funding required for development up to a flight-worthy test item shall be clearly identified.

5. Deliverables

Once awarded the funding, the contractor shall as a minimum perform the above tasks and record the output in Technical Notes to be delivered in electronic form (PDF) to the Agency. The contractor shall also deliver an Executive Summary of no more than 5 pages, also in PDF form and free from proprietary information, in order for the agency to be able to distribute to the public.

6. Priorities on Exploration Technologies

The paragraphs below address the scope of necessary advances in the current state-of—the-art technologies to fulfill the exploration objectives of the Aurora Programme. They are listed per technology stream, and they also include an indication as to which areas in each stream have priority. Further information can be obtained in the aforementioned ftp://ftp.estec.esa.nl/pub/columbus/aurora/index.htm site.

3.1 Automated Guidance, Navigation, Control, and Mission Analysis

Specific interest in the automated GN&C, and mission analysis areas is the development of:

• Aero-assisted Guidance, Navigation, and Control: aero-capture, aero-gravity assist for high L/D space vehicle, and aero-breaking


• Planetary entry and descent guidance, navigation and control, including:


• Hypersonic precision steering for planetary entry of capsules,


• Hypersonic flight data sensors,


• Precision navigation to atmospheric entry point,


• Dynamics and control of inflatable heat shield
• Planetary ascent and orbit restitution guidance, navigation, and control


• Autonomous GN&C system for rendezvous and docking in planetary orbit, and close operations at small bodies, including:


• Relative navigation sensor suite addressing spacecraft-to-spacecraft ranges of 100 kilometres through docking,


• Spacecraft self-determination of orbits around remote planetary bodies,


• Terminal approach and capture strategy & dynamics for sample return mission,


• Integrated autonomous onboard optical navigation and trajectory control system,
• High Precision Soft Landing, including:


• Hazard detection & avoidance, and powered landing guidance algorithms,


• Lidar/altimeter-based navigation techniques,


• Machine vision algorithms for absolute navigation above planetary terrain,


• Tethered control systems,


• Advanced planetary synthesizer, etc.,
• Autonomous intelligent control & data systems (GN&C, Micro-Avionics):


• Autonomous planning and execution technologies that enable robust achievement of mission, objectives in the face of dynamic and uncertain/hostile environments,


• Onboard control autonomy and contingency resolution for interplanetary missions,


• Safety and survivability (inc. FDIR)


• Intelligent propellant preservation via autonomous control,


• Verification and validation methodology & technologies,

• Trajectory optimisation and astrodynamics for interplanetary cruise, fly-by and planetary arrival, including advanced interplanetary navigation


• Rapid design, prototyping, and testing of new micro-spacecraft GN&C concepts


• Revolutionary GN&C concepts and techniques:

• Guidance, navigation, and control of tethered spacecraft in interplanetary cruise


• Interplanetary formation flying, and constellation guidance & control,


• Guidance and control of the formation of interplanetary structures,


• Departure energies, trip times and entry speeds for Human Mars Missions.

In the area of Avionics, the miniaturisation, within a proper systems perspective, shall be an important issue to support the Aurora program and its missions. However, it is not the only aspect to be covered in the technology preparation. Other important points to be considered shall be the power/energy consumption minimisation, harness reduction, environmental robustness (temperature, radiation, mechanical stress), intrinsic reliability of the support hardware elements, dependability at system level. Furthermore, a robust approach to the autonomy required to support missions and S/C in hostile environments at very long distance of Earth and with possibly long periods without Earth contact shall be considered.

Under these assumptions, the call for ideas is expected to cover areas such as:

• Evolvable Hardware and Systems providing increased flexibility as concerns S/C or mission reconfiguration, adaptation to unknown/unpredicted conditions, graceful degradation, self-repairing capability.


• Adaptive command and control architecture as an inherently distributed process and supporting tools,


• Integrated Control and Data System on a chip,


• New approach to the space assembly unit design (highly dense 3D interconnect assembly),


• Highly dependable avionics architecture and elements for very long missions (n-tuple redundancy, distributed control),


• Robust methods for supporting autonomous decision processes as part of the mission and spacecraft/probe/surface element on board software,


• Extended on board engineering monitoring for the purpose of accurate S/C state determination (sensors) in a concept where autonomous processes are integrated in the S/C command and control,


• Non intrusive telemetry/telecommand using on board wireless communications, Harness reduction, data transmission on power harness…

This list is not exhaustive and potential bidders are invited to look for more details in the Aurora ‘Technology for Exploration’ dossier and feel free to make innovative proposals in the field.

While the number and diversity of sensors is increasing in general, they will play an even more important role in the case of exploration missions because of the more uncertain targets they will find.

Sensors and monitoring instruments shall be developed with the following characteristics:

• Unified interface able to operate at relatively high speed for raw data acquisition;


• Embedded data filtering capability (e.g. averaging, linear and non-linear filtering);


• If applicable embedded signature analysis capability, spurious measurement cancellation or event detection and alarm generation.

Special efforts should be dedicated to the field of fault detection, isolation & recovery (FDIR) aspects taken into account at sensor level. Moreover, “smart sensors” also denotes “sensor-reconfigurability” which underlines by itself the need of high performance on-board networks.

Proposal related to the definition/development/validation of smart sensor concepts and related interconnect technologies matching with characteristics listed here above are welcome.

Communications

In the area of communications and radio localization, there is a need for system concept studies prior to embarking into technology development. These are due mainly to the need for autonomous operation without possible direct support from the Earth operators. Issues to be addressed are:

• In-situ communication infrastructure, of point-to-point but also point-to-multipoint nature,


• High rate link service to the Earth,


• Concept of interplanetary internet,


• In-situ localization infrastructure for orbiters, in-orbit rendez-vous operations, landers and rovers on the planet surface.

In the area of Entry, Descent and Landing, in the medium term, the following technological missions may be worthwhile milestones within a long term strategy: High speed Earth entry, Earth (and Mars) aero-capture, Light weight entry systems and light weight guided entry vehicles. The call for ideas can help to prepare the technological base for an efficient design, verification and operation of such vehicles.

Proposals are expected in the areas of:

• Aerothermodynamics of Earth and Mars re-entry flows, including methodology studies, database construction and validation, development of physical models and their numerical implementation and validation, ground and flight instrumentation, new shapes and concepts for the different phases of the flight.


• New concepts and new materials for thermal protection and structural functions. In particular, light ceramic ablators; advanced heat shield concepts (inflatable, re-useable, using electromagnetic effects…) are of interest.


• Concepts, technology, scaling laws, test methodology and integration of inflatable landing systems


• Improvement of atmospheric models for Mars.

3.5 Crew and Life Support aspects of Exploration

Given the constraints of current launchers, manned exploration beyond LEO implies long journey times with extended surface stays. The crew must be to a very large extent self-sufficient (recycling of life support consumables), radiation hazards, biohazards and chemical contamination control, and medical urgencies must be handled with only limited assistance from Earth. Full protection of an interplanetary spacecraft against cosmic rays and solar proton events would result in prohibitive mass and cost penalties. In addition, surface habitats need to provide protection. Account must be taken of both natural and man-made sources of radiation.

The call for ideas can help to prepare the necessary technology, and proposals are expected in the area for:

Regenerative Life Support:

• Regenerative life support for interplanetary travel (technology developments, testing and flight demonstration),


• Bio-regenerative life support for surface habitation (basic R&D, ground demonstration and engineering model development, preliminary flight demonstration),


• On-ground development of man-rated facilities for crew aspects testing and demonstration, including strategies for closed door campaign,


• Technology developments for quality control and contamination monitoring (chemical and microbial contaminants),


• New concepts concerning EVA issues, including strategies for surface EVA and development of critical technologies.

• Techniques and devices allowing for identification of life and potential biochemical and chemical contaminants, be they of known or unknown nature. Forms of life to be considered shall include but are not limited to viruses, unicellular or multi-cellular micro-organisms or their precursors, proteins or amino-acids,


• Techniques considered shall include (but are not limited to) biochemistry, chemistry and spectroscopy,


• Techniques and devices (such as, but not only, handlers, mixers…) to automatically prepare or culture samples for further analysis,


• Techniques and tools to maintain crew health, well-being or physical capabilities in the fields of: balance, gait, muscular efficiency,


• Monitoring and prevention of bone impairment. Prevention means shall consider both exercise and medications that shall be applicable to both men and women,


• Body-segment imaging systems (x-ray, magnetic resonance imaging),


• Advanced psychology techniques (to cope with isolation and confinement syndromes)

• Protection strategies,


• Analysis of requirements for monitoring,


• Modelling during design of the environment and shielding,


• Development of a space weather warning system,


• Investigation of environments and effects in example scenarios and designs.

For ISRU (initially) physico-chemical processes need to be identified and further developed that can convert indigenous materials on e.g. Mars and Moon, into fuel for propulsion (e.g. methane, oxygen) and life support consumables (oxygen, nitrogen). On Mars the low-pressure atmosphere is almost pure carbon dioxide and available for further processing. Sufficient hydrogen (i.e. water) is not detected yet. On Moon the regolith contains abundant oxygen. For cost reasons the preferred processes (chain of processes) are those that recycle waste products like carbon dioxide and wastewater. Those processes are of interest, which are cost effective with respect to re-supply from Earth and energy consumption. Many processes used in Industry (Sabatier reaction, high and low temperature electrolysis, Reversed water gas shift etc.) exist that may be converted to the new environment(s) and could form the basis for ISRU. Some of those have already extensively been studied for application in space.

Any proposal will be welcome addressing the processes or solutions to critical technology elements of the process(es) (e.g. catalysts, high lift coolers for liquefaction of fuel and life support consumables) etc.

In the area of Power Generation and Conditioning, the call for technology ideas will be aligned to three main issues and thus proposals are to be expected in the areas of:

• Definition of improved concepts for multi-kilowatt photovoltaic power generation,


• Preparation of the new technologies required in order to establish a multi-kilowatt nuclear based power source and associated power conditioning for use on a planetary body.

The achievement of such objectives will be to assure the establishment of the requirements for:

• A manned exploration mission on the planet Mars,

• Possible un-manned missions to Jovian moons.

• Additionally as a supplementary method specifically for the surface of Mars, the definition of concepts for extracting electrical power from the wind energy known to be present on the Martian surface and the associated technologies can also be considered as an area of interest.

With reference to photovoltaic power generation, the development and optimisation activity will be focused on four main areas:

• Enhancement of GaAs based multi-junction cells,


• Optical Concentrator Systems,


• Inflatable solar array structure,


• Thin Film photovoltaic module,


• Low Intensity Low Temperature (LILT) Silicon solar cells.

It is important to underline the following points:

• The development activity of each photovoltaic technology shall focus not only on the photovoltaic components but also on the support structures, in particular, for thin film technology,


• A study shall be carried out at system level in order to implement the specific mission requirements to the objectives of the photovoltaic technology development activity.

As far as the nuclear power source is concerned, proposals will be welcome considering the three main subsystems, these being:

• The reactor itself and the nuclear shielding for which mass and dimension levels are nearly constant at such high power levels,


• The power conversion system i.e. thermocouples, alternator, magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) conversion,


• The cold source i.e. a radiator the dimensions of which vary with the reactor temperature.

Specifically for the Martian surface and thus related to wind based power generation, the development and optimisation activity will be focused on four main areas:

• Definition of power generation levels that could be achieved from Martian winds.


• Statistical assessment of the power generation potential over a Martian year.


• Possible application of terrestrial wind power generation concepts to Mars.


• Definition of any new technologies foreseen to support wind power generation.

Energy storage which is intended to be considered at a later stage in the Exploration Technology Programme, shall focus on the demonstration that multi-billion terrestrial fuel cell developments can, after proper modifications, be integrated into regenerative fuel cell systems to be applied to manned space missions.

The success of space exploration will largely depend on the availability of reliable propulsion systems capable of fulfilling strict new requirements such as allowing a fast transfer time, providing large payload capability, enabling soft landing on planets, sample return, etc. For Propulsion, In-space transportation, Ascent/descent vehicles, the call for ideas is intended to help prepare the basis for the design, development and qualification of technologies for exploration in the following areas:

• Electric Propulsion,


• Solar Thermal Orbit Transfer Stages (STOTS),


• Nuclear Thermal Propulsion,


• Solar Sails,


• Planetary Ascent/Descent Propulsion Technologies,


• Tethered Systems,


• In-Situ Propellant Production and Related Propulsion Technologies.

Proposals for activities shall put emphasis on new developments and avoid overlapping with existing activities currently being funded in Europe. On the other hand, existing heritage at design and experimental level on the proposed technologies shall be presented as a supporting element for the proposal.

Technologies not belonging to the previous list will also be considered, if supported by a convincing demonstration of applicability to the Aurora field of interest.

It is expected that robotics and mechanisms technologies will play an essential role in both unmanned and human exploration missions for the following functions:

• Docking, berthing, assembly, inspection, maintenance and servicing of orbital and surface infrastructure,


• Mobility on, beneath and above the surface of planets or moons,


• Automation of scientific and technological investigations (including the deployment / positioning of instruments, the handling of tools for grinding / polishing / picking up samples, and the logistics transfer of specimen),


• Automation of in-situ resource development and management (including logistics transport, excavation, mining, processing, refining, manufacturing, structure fabrication, plant cultivation and trash management around surface bases),


• Support to human EVA by providing intelligent cognitive and manipulative aids.

For this purpose, proposals are solicited in the areas of:

• Manipulation systems for in-orbit assembly, heavy-duty surface operations, or dextrous handling on landers, rovers, or in facilities (including micro manipulation systems),


• Rovers (local micro rovers of less than 10 kg mass for science operations in the immediate vicinity of a lander, mini rovers of about 100 kg mass for unmanned regional exploration and sample return, large “utility trucks”, large pressurised rovers as manned mobile field laboratories, highly specialised nano rovers of less than 1 kg mass, rover swarms, exotic mobility concepts),


• Underground robots (robotic drill systems or moles for subsurface analysis and sampling in depths of 10 / 100 / 1000 m depth),


• Floating or flying “aerobots” (robotic balloons, airships, fixed or rotary wing aircraft),


• Dedicated mechanisms or specialised machinery.

Proposals should address novel system concepts, design approaches, operational strategies, or specific technology building blocks from an end-to-end chain (including hardware and software of both flight and ground segment parts). Emphasis shall be placed on extremely low mass and low power solutions and on identifying the beneficial role of the proposed device in efficiently serving the scientific or exploration operations of a target mission.

3.10 Structure and Thermal Control

To sustain the long-term strategy of manned missions to the Moon and to Mars, some mid-term technological and scientific missions will be defined. For this programme, substantial technological efforts need to be implemented in a stepwise manner in the area of structures and lightweight materials. They should focus on new concepts and new materials for structures and thermal protection systems. Volume being even more constraining than mass, large lightweight inflatable or deployable structures, appendages and radiators, including their verification techniques must be devised and proven. In-orbit assembly techniques, in-orbit health monitoring and maintenance capability are also considered necessary.

Proposals in the following areas will help bringing the necessary technologies to maturity:

• Development of alternative curing technologies,


• Discontinuously reinforced Aluminium (DRA),


• Al/Mg foams,


• Nanotubes,


• Joining techniques,


• Large lightweight inflatable/deployable structures including verification methodologies (combining simulation, on-ground and in-flight testing),


• High temperature insulation materials for use in high pressure atmosphere,


• Two-phase loop deployable radiators,


• Micro-coolers for planetary landers,


• Variable Thermo-Optical Property changes.

Proposals shall not be limited to the previous list and they will be considered if their applicability to the Aurora programme is supported by a proper justification.

Proposals for activities shall put their emphasis on new developments and shall not overlap with existing activities currently funded by other channels. However existing heritage at design and experimental level on the proposed technologies can be presented to support the proposal.

3.11 Instrumentation

The preparation of future human exploration missions requires a significant increase of knowledge about various aspects of the environment that the astronauts will have to face. Similarly, in order to conduct the in situ search for life on other planets much more now how is needed. That is why ideas for new instrumentation, which could be used as payload on landers and rovers, orbiting spacecraft or any other platform are also part of this call for ideas.

More specifically the instrumentation ideas could be in mainly two fields:

• Preparation for human exploration, which includes radiation environment characterisation (dosimeters etc.), investigation of dust particle characteristics (electrostatic charging etc.) and any other investigation of relevant aspects.


• Search for life: This includes instruments for the detection of organic molecules, extant and extinct life forms (e.g. microscopes, spectrometers, as well as instruments using for example new molecular biological methods), as well as instruments to support this activity (e.g. electromagnetic soil sounding).