On February 13th, 2012, at 10:00 UTC, the VEGA VV-01 launch was carried out from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guyana. A scientific payload named LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite) was released as the main payload and the microsatellite ALMASat-1 (a 30cm cube weighing 13.5 kg) provided by the II Faculty of Engineering of the University of Bologna and 7 Cubesat selected by ESA’s Education Office, were also included as secondary payloads and released by the VEGA Maiden Flight. The payload composition foresaw the release of the main payload LARES along a circular 1450x1450 orbit, while the secondary payloads will be released along an elliptic deorbiting trajectory, within a time interval of 30 seconds between the passivation of the upper stage and the depletion of the possibly contaminating liquids and gases from the AVUM. Motivated by this very challenging mission, the ALMASat-1 team in collaboration with ALMASpace S.r.l. developed a simulation Tool for sHort and medium ORbital propagation (THOR) to carry out an analysis of payloads separation & orbit propagation for investigating possible payload collisions and pollution-contaminations. The propagation part of the simulation tool has been validated by using an ESOC space debris office propagation tool based on the propagator of the Orbit Determination via Improved Normal Equations (ODIN) software package.
V. Fabbri, P. Tortora (2012). PAYLOAD ORBITAL SEPARATION AND POLLUTION ANALYSIS TOOL FOR CLUSTER LAUNCHES OF SMALL SATELLITES. NOORDWIJK : European Space Agency.
PAYLOAD ORBITAL SEPARATION AND POLLUTION ANALYSIS TOOL FOR CLUSTER LAUNCHES OF SMALL SATELLITES
TORTORA, PAOLO
2012
Abstract
On February 13th, 2012, at 10:00 UTC, the VEGA VV-01 launch was carried out from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guyana. A scientific payload named LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite) was released as the main payload and the microsatellite ALMASat-1 (a 30cm cube weighing 13.5 kg) provided by the II Faculty of Engineering of the University of Bologna and 7 Cubesat selected by ESA’s Education Office, were also included as secondary payloads and released by the VEGA Maiden Flight. The payload composition foresaw the release of the main payload LARES along a circular 1450x1450 orbit, while the secondary payloads will be released along an elliptic deorbiting trajectory, within a time interval of 30 seconds between the passivation of the upper stage and the depletion of the possibly contaminating liquids and gases from the AVUM. Motivated by this very challenging mission, the ALMASat-1 team in collaboration with ALMASpace S.r.l. developed a simulation Tool for sHort and medium ORbital propagation (THOR) to carry out an analysis of payloads separation & orbit propagation for investigating possible payload collisions and pollution-contaminations. The propagation part of the simulation tool has been validated by using an ESOC space debris office propagation tool based on the propagator of the Orbit Determination via Improved Normal Equations (ODIN) software package.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
