FDI(R) for satellite at Thales Alenia Space how to deal with high availability and robustness in space domain?

Abstract

European leader for satellite systems and at the forefront of orbital infrastructures, Thales Alenia Space is a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Finmeccanica (33%) and forms with Telespazio a Space Alliance. Thales Alenia Space is a worldwide reference in telecoms, radar and optical Earth observation, defense and security, navigation and science. Thales Alenia Space has 11 industrial sites in 4 European countries (France, Italy, Spain and Belgium) with over 7,200 employees worldwide. Satellite evolution and wish to design more autonomous mission imply an enhancement of satellite architecture and to pay special attention to the FDIR. Nevertheless the constraints on the FDIR technique and strategy stay still invariant : robustness, reactive detection, quick isolation / identification and validation. This paper gives first the current context of FDIR by describing the approach implemented on Telecommunication satellite and more precisely one of the most FDIR sensible subsystem : the AOCS (Attitude and Orbit Control System). Following current state of FDIR in the Space domain, some perspectives will be introduced like a centralized distributed FDIR strategy for next generation of autonomous satellites and some research tracks like active diagnosis and hybrid diagnosis.