Meccanica Magazine n. 4

ENG
MetroSpace Lab: the laboratory headed to space
Next stop: Mars! Yes, the red planet. At the beginning of 2022, the
final integration was made on the scientific instrument “MicroMED”,
a dust analyzer developed at the MetroSpace Lab. This lab of the
Department of Mechanical Engineering is located on our campus
in Lecco. Here scientists carry out the design and development
of instruments for space applications and, sometimes, also their
manufacturing, integration, and qualification. MicroMED will fly to
Mars onboard the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars 2022 mission. Micro-
MED is part of “DustSuite”, a series of scientific instruments aiming
at studying martian dust, which will be used by the Russian Space
Agency Roscosmos. The MicroMED project has been developed in
collaboration with the astronomical observatory of the INAF, located
in Capodimonte, and the INTA, Institute of the Spanish Space
Agency, and thanks to the funds POR-FESR2014-2020 received by
Regione Campania and by ASI. Even though it started way later than
expected, in less than three years the project resulted in two developed,
assembled, and qualified flying models of the instruments.
MicroMED is only one of the many projects currently under development
in our Laboratory. For example, also VISTA (Volatile In Situ
Thermogravimeter Analyser) is currently being assembled, since
last June it passed the PDR, the first revision carried out by the ESA.
VISTA, a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) selected as a payload of
the Milani satellite of the HERA mission of the ESA, developed in cooperation
with the INAF-IAPS in Rome and the National Research
Centre. The objective will be to measure the level of molecular contamination
onboard the satellite and study its emission during the
flyby phases as planned around the Didymos asteroid. The current
step of the project involves the creation of an engineering model to
be tested and delivered by the end of next spring and flight models
for the Milani satellite. However, more work is to be done to build
the final model ready for the launch, scheduled in 2024. There are
many steps before the launch, for example, the qualification of the
engineering model, manufacturing of the flight models, integration,
functional testing, and acceptance tests.
Manufacturing space instruments is not a usual activity in the laboratory.
Its main activity focuses on developing innovative space
instruments, proving their feasibility at the initial phases of the
mission development. In this perspective, the Lab was responsible
for the feasibility design of the MAJIS instrument, within the JUICE
(ESA) mission framework, whose manufacturing is now performed
by Leonardo Company.
From an engineering point of view, feasibility studies are quite challenging
since they require the development of different design solutions
suitable according to the features of each mission. Modelling
thermal and mechanical systems of scientific instruments and
payloads, which are starting points for both the development itself
and feasibility study, always demands experimental validation, given
the extreme and unusual conditions object of the analysis. Therefore,
the MetroSpace Lab stands out for its Thermal Vacuum Chamber
(TVC) and measurement instruments, which allow evaluating the
performance of the instruments in environmental and stress conditions
typical of each phase of the currently analysed mission.
But if one project comes to an end, more are about to start, especially
those focusing on the next destinations of interest for Space
Agencies. The MetroSpace Lab is studying the development of Daedalus-CAM,
a panoramic camera to observe Moon caves for a future
ESA project, and two innovative imaging spectrometers: the RIIFS, a
Fourier-Transform Spectrometer immune to vibrations; and the FI-
SPEX, an integral field spectrograph able to produce hyperspectral
images after a single acquisition. These two instruments are ideal
candidates respectively for surface exploration through a Rover and
space exploration.
meccanica magazine
21