In-orbit experience and lessons learned from the AVANTI experiment

Abstract

This work addresses flight results and practical challenges of the Autonomous Vision Approach Navigation and Target Identification in-orbit demonstration. This endeavor realized a fully autonomous rendezvous to a noncooperative target in low Earth orbit, in the separation ranges between tens of kilometers to 50 m, relying exclusively on angles-only observations extracted from pictures collected by a monocular, far-range, camera system. By considering experiment commissioning and execution phases, a total of two months of in-orbit experience could be collected, making AVANTI the most authoritative benchmark for designing the first phase of the approach for future active debris removal missions. Accordingly, this work revisits how crucial design decisions revealed decisive to the success of the mission and how they impacted the obtained experiment performances. As conclusion, such lessons learned gained from the flight campaign are reshaped as design guidelines for handing over the peculiar guidance navigation and control system - referred as to AVANTI-concept - to future rendezvous missions.