GSTP Workshop on demonstration of technology ... - emits - ESA

ESA UNCLASSIFIED – Releasable to the PublicFor in-orbit demonstration to be efficient it must be affordable, effort commensuratewith the benefits. This requires new approaches, which in turn become alsoobjectives of the demonstration.The proposalThe Agency is proposing to continue implementing this strategy through twoElements of the new period of the General Support Technology Programme (<strong>GSTP</strong>),<strong>GSTP</strong>-6:Technology Flight Opportunities: Element 4Element 4 will be re-defined to satisfy the demand from industry for opportunities toprovide flight legacy to their products and to profit from the increasing opportunitiesfor hosting payloads on commercial and institutional missions. The opportunity of aflight demo is a powerful motivator for bridging the gap between low TRL and thematurity required for adoption on missions. This latter problem has been an issue for<strong>GSTP</strong> developments for a long time.This refocused Element 4 shall facilitate technology and products to reach the laststep of the TRL ladder, by matching technologies needing such in-orbit demo withthe cheapest and fastest flight opportunity available, on any mission providing therequired profile (national, commercial, ESA’s, etc.). Implementation will be viaperiodic Announcements of Opportunity for candidate technologies and carriers. TheAgency will seek possible agreements / block reservations for opportunities onregular national technology flights. Coordination of In-Orbit Demonstration effortsin Europe will be pursued, sharing opportunities, platforms, and launchers.Breakthrough Mission Approaches: Element 5Industry in Europe is lacking the large defence budgets that drive technologydevelopment in other parts of the world. In particular in the US, agencies likeDARPA or the Air Force Lab are pushing very innovative concepts to flightdemonstration that once proven are more easily adopted in main missions. TheProba-1 and -2 missions have been very successful in this sense: Autonomy in eventdriven operations as opposed to stored mission timeline, system – softwareengineering, use of autocode, share of system software across functional verificationand operations, etc. are now entering mainstream missions. This does not excludethe demonstration of technology, as new techniques usually trigger new technologiesas well. The Proba series has also pioneered new technologies and products such asthe recent generations of ESA processors ERC-32, LEON, Li-ion batteries, etc. thathave been selected in core missions precisely because of such heritage. The infusionof these technologies and practices in the main missions of the Agency is facilitatedby the Technical Directorate engineering support to projects.2