Abstract
Completed in 2009, the European Proximity Operations Simulator 2.0 (EPOS 2.0) succeeded EPOS 1.0 at the German Space Operations Center (GSOC). One of the many contributions the old EPOS 1.0 facility made to spaceflight rendezvous is the verification of the Jena-Optronik laser-based sensors used by the Automated Transfer Vehicle. While EPOS 2.0 builds upon its heritage, it is a completely new design aiming at considerably more complex rendezvous scenarios. During the last ten years, GSOC’s On-Orbit-Servicing & Autonomy group, who operates, maintains and evolves EPOS 2.0, has made numerous contributions to the field of uncooperative rendezvous, using EPOS as its primary tool. After general research in optical navigation in the early 2010s, the OOS group took a leading role in the DLR project “On-Orbit-Servicing End-to-End Simulation” in 2014. EPOS 2.0 served as the hardware in the loop simulator of the rendezvous phase and contributed substantially to the project’s remarkable success. Over the years, E2E has revealed demanding requirements, leading to numerous facility improvements and extensions. In addition to the OOS group’s research work, numerous and diverse open-loop test campaigns for industry and internal (DLR) customers have shaped the capabilities of EPOS 2.0 significantly.
Highlights
A Look BackIn 2009, located in a laboratory hall at the German Space Operations Center (GSOC), construction of the European Proximity Operations Simulator 2.0 (EPOS 2.0) was completed
We describe the facility’s heritage and the design rationales, the On Orbit Servicing (OOS)-Group’s rendezvous research and diverse test campaigns for customers in roughly chronological order
Any real-time applications can be executed, e.g., based on MATLAB/Simulink. This mode is useful for closed-loop simulations, where navigation sensor data is processed in real time and fed to a dynamics simulator, which, in turn, moves the robots just as the chaser and target would move in orbit
Summary
In 2009, located in a laboratory hall at the German Space Operations Center (GSOC), construction of the European Proximity Operations Simulator 2.0 (EPOS 2.0) was completed. EPOS 2.0 allows the testing of optical sensors, navigation algorithms and even on-board computers in the loop. It aims at the most complex scenarios, such as active debris removal or lifetime extension, including tumbling targets not equipped for rendezvous, non-eyesafe laser-based sensors and more. GSOC’s On Orbit Servicing and Autonomy Group (OOS-Group) has operated, maintained and advanced the simulation facility. This group uses EPOS 2.0 for its own research and offers test campaigns to external customers. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has, over three decades of experience with spacecraft rendezvous simulations, and recently the OOS-Group celebrated the 10 year anniversary of EPOS 2.0. The relation between requirements and learning with facility improvements and extensions can be illustrated vividly
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